House lawmakers return to Capitol Hill as Republicans hope to pass stopgap spending bill
The US House is back after a five-week recess. And this week, Republicans are focused a key legislative agenda item: passing a stopgap spending bill to stave off a possible government shutdown.
Currently, funding is guaranteed through 30 September, but after a year marked by record-breaking shutdowns, GOP House speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to advance a bill that would extend funding spending at its current levels until after the November midterms.
Johnson is expected to put a vote on the House floor this week, using a fast-track procedure that requires a two-thirds majority to pass.
Prior to the Senate heading home for their August recess, the upper chamber approved its own continuing resolution to keep the government until 11 December, this also included provisions like preventing political appointees having approvals over federal grants.
The House is set to leave Washington again at the end of this week for Labor Day recess, provided it can get through its to-do list.
Key events
Bessent accuses Carney of turning US-Canada trade fallout into ‘political shouting match’
Chris Hippensteel
Asked on CNBC about the escalating US-Canada trade war with Canada, Bessent spoke dismissively of Canada’s ability to economically retaliate against US tariffs. “I don’t think you can be in a tit-for-tat with someone 13 times larger than you are,” Bessent said.
He also accused Canadian prime minister Mark Carney of turning a trade dispute into “a political shouting match”. This comes after Donald Trump signed an executive order ordering the US interior department to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America” in response to the back-and-forth of tariffs between the two countries.
“[Carney] is doing what’s best for the Liberal Party, what’s best for Mark Carney. And in the long run, the Canadian people are going to see through that,” Bessent said today.
“They were offered the best trade deal of any country on the globe,” Bessent added, “and he chose to walk away from it at the last minute.”
Trump says ‘only reason’ Americans would oppose datacenters is if they ‘want to end up being backwards and poor’
In another Truth Social missive today, Donald Trump has taken aim at the Americans who oppose the construction of datacenters – the power-demanding warehouses that tech companies use to house their computer servers and systems.
The president said that the “only reason” communities would not want datacenters is “if they want to end up being backwards and poor”.
“If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,” Trump wrote. “The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.”
Across the country anti-datacenter animus has galvanized many areas – both Democratic and Republican. According to recent polling, 75% of Americans oppose a new datacenter being built near where they live.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen states have weighed temporary bans on new datacenter construction, and New York last month became the first to enact one. Progressive stalwarts Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez are now pushing for a national moratorium. And in Texas, even Governor Greg Abbott – a hard‑right Republican – has called for halting datacenter development in rural parts of the state.
Trump, for his part, is politically boxed in: he’s pushing to make the US a leader in artificial‑intelligence innovation – a goal that depends on rapid datacenter expansion – while also promising to bring down electricity costs for consumers, who are already facing higher bills.
“China could not be happier with this anti‑Data Center movement,” Trump wrote in a social‑media post. “Actually, they can’t believe it is happening!”
As my colleague, Dharna Noor has reported, so far the president’s answer to this bind is the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” – a voluntary agreement he says will prevent families from paying for the AI boom. Nearly 200 companies, utilities, datacenter developers and states have signed on, the administration announced last month. But several environmental groups have dismissed the pledge as “toothless,” noting that it carries no legal force.
Chris Hippensteel
Scott Bessent told CNBC that he’d met the previous night with Pan Gongsheng, the governor of China’s central bank.
Their meeting – of which Bessent revealed few details – came amid speculation that the US would struggle to successfully isolate Iran under its latest sanctions without buy-in from China.
Bessent pushed back on those criticisms during his CNBC interview. He said that the US and China are largely aligned on their goals for Iran, including reopening the strait of Hormuz and keeping nuclear weapons out of the regime’s hands. But he also argued that the US could succeed in crippling Iran’s economy with or without China’s cooperation.
The Treasury Secretary declined to share details of his conversation with Pan Gongsheng, or to speak in any depth about what direction the US and China are trending in – be it toward cooperation or standoff – behind closed doors.
Chris Hippensteel
Speaking with CNBC after his opening remarks in Asheville, Bessent said that the goal of the latest round of sanctions on Iran was to force the Iranian regime to the negotiating table.
Pressed on whether the hardline Iranian leadership could be moved by the economic strangulation of its people, Bessent appeared to suggest that the threat of popular uprising in response to those conditions might motivate the regime to make a deal.
“The main thing they care about is their head staying attached to their neck,” Bessent said.
Donald Trump previously expressed hope that the US’s initial strike on Iran, which killed the nation’s ageing supreme leader, would prompt such a revolt. That prediction has, so far, not come to pass.
Today we’ll also be tracking vice-president JD Vance’s trip to Detroit, Michigan, where he’ll be speaking at a manufacturing facility and campaigning on behalf of several Republican nominees in key statewide races.
This includes Mike Rogers, who is running for Senate in a closely watched race against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, and John James, a congressman who is running to replace Gretchen Whitmer in the governor’s race. James will face Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, in the November general election.
Kevin Warsh, speaking briefly after Bessent in Asheville, described the current global financial landscape as one of surging investment and growth – with little mention of the headwinds facing the economy.
“The future is already here, but we’re all experiencing it somewhat different,” the new Federal Reserve chair said.
Last week at the Jackson Hole symposium, Warsh did not indicate where the Fed will take interest rates in the coming months, despite US inflation remaining stubbornly above the central bank’s 2% target amid the war in Iran.
‘We’re going to hit them hard’: Trump vows retaliation after Tehran targets US bases in Jordan
Yohannes Lowe
Donald Trump has told Fox News’s chief foreign correspondent, Trey Yingst, that the US will respond to Iran targeting US military bases in Jordan overnight.
“We’re going to hit them hard,” Trump told Fox News. “There will be a response,” he added, after Jordan’s army confirmed it had intercepted eight missiles early this morning.
In response to the US assault on Larak Island late on Sunday, the IRGC “targeted technical infrastructure, maintenance facilities and enemy fighter jet positions at the US-operated King Hussein and al-Azraq airbases in Jordan” with ballistic missiles, causing “heavy damage”, according to state TV.
In the interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump said all of the missiles were intercepted by American air defence systems, except one which was allowed to pass through the airspace because it was identified as not on course to hit anything “significant”, according to Yingst.
Bessent thanks EU for support of US sanctions on countries continuing to trade with Iran
Chris Hippensteel
Before turning the microphone over to Kevin Warsh, Bessent thanked the European Union and the European Central Bank for their support of US plans to further isolate Iran from the global economy. That plan – dubbed Operation Economic Outcast – requires the US to win the cooperation of allies and adversaries alike, with a threat of punishment to states and companies that continue to do business with the regime.
Bessent said, without offering specifics, that the plan would lead to the toppling of the Iranian leadership, a goal that the Trump administration has been vowing to bring about since the war’s opening days.
Chris Hippensteel
Bessent opened his remarks by pointing to the host city of Asheville, North Carolina, as a beacon of economic recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, before promptly pivoting to praise for Trump.
“Under President Trump, we are entering a new season of national strength,” Bessent told the assembled global leaders.
Bessent criticized the G20 as having lost its founding priorities in fostering economic growth, and said Trump was bringing the G20 back to that original purpose.
Bessent delivers remarks at G20 summit
Chris Hippensteel
We’re watching today as Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, and Kevin Warsh, the chair of the Federal Reserve, deliver their opening remarks at the G20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina.
The meetings are unfolding in the shadow of economic disruptions downstream of the war in Iran, which has choked global energy markets and driven up inflation around the world. Bessent is speaking first.
House lawmakers return to Capitol Hill as Republicans hope to pass stopgap spending bill
The US House is back after a five-week recess. And this week, Republicans are focused a key legislative agenda item: passing a stopgap spending bill to stave off a possible government shutdown.
Currently, funding is guaranteed through 30 September, but after a year marked by record-breaking shutdowns, GOP House speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to advance a bill that would extend funding spending at its current levels until after the November midterms.
Johnson is expected to put a vote on the House floor this week, using a fast-track procedure that requires a two-thirds majority to pass.
Prior to the Senate heading home for their August recess, the upper chamber approved its own continuing resolution to keep the government until 11 December, this also included provisions like preventing political appointees having approvals over federal grants.
The House is set to leave Washington again at the end of this week for Labor Day recess, provided it can get through its to-do list.
Trump says Iran is a ‘failed nation’ and ‘dead’ as fresh strikes are exchanged
Donald Trump has claimed that Iran is a “Failed Nation” and that the regime is “DEAD” in a post on Truth Social today.
This comes as Washington and Tehran exchange their first strikes in a month, after the US struck Larak Island in the strait of Hormuz, and Iran retaliated by targeting Jordanian airbases.
Trump, however, insisted that the country’s economic condition had rendered them powerless.
“They have no currency,” the president said, after the Iranian rial dropped to a record low last week. “They are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country.”
Trump added that “the only thing” Iran has is “FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and a good line of “BULLSHIT”.
It’s worth noting that US prices are up 3.4% compared with a year ago in the US. The average price for gallon of fuel is also a dollar higher than this time last year, before the war with Iran started.
My colleagues are covering the latest developments out of the Middle East:
Donald Trump is in Washington today. He’ll begin his day in closed-door meetings, but we’ll hear from the president at 3pm ET in the Oval Office, when he makes an announcement on healthcare affordability and prescription drug pricing.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as that gets under way.
Edward Helmore
The White House “border czar,” Tom Homan, denied on Sunday that deporting British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos just a day after being arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amounted to preferential treatment.
Homan said it was his understanding that Yiannopoulos, 41, had overstayed what he believed to be a visitor visa, had not appeared at an immigration hearing and was issued a final order of removal on 22 July.
“He didn’t show up,” Homan told CNN’s State of the Union. “The judge ordered him deported. So, once ICE gets an order of deportation from a federal judge, their job is to execute that order, and that’s what they did.”
He added: “He had his due process, ordered removed by a federal judge, and ICE removed him. It’s that simple.”
Yiannopoulos’s removal one day after his arrest, when many others who have been deported had first endured lengthy detention center incarcerations, has prompted questions about whether he received preferential treatment in that respect. Homan said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, was trying to speed up the deportation process.
The US treasury department is likely to unveil weekly new secondary sanctions aimed at increasing economic pressure on Iran, with an initial focus on banks, treasury secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters.
After imposing penalties on the United Arab Emirates branches of Egypt’s Banque Misr on Friday over alleged financial links to Iran, Bessent said in an interview that the next step may be cutting off an institution entirely from the dollar-based financial system.
“You’re going to see a lot more of these every week,” Bessent said ahead of a Group of 20 finance leaders meeting. “We’re starting with the banks, and we’re telling the banks it’s not OK to have Iranian money and to aid the regime.“
Bessent said he intends to drive the message home to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors to cut economic ties to Iran, or face secondary sanctions. The Treasury launched the effort, dubbed Operation Economic Outcast, last week.
“There can be no leakage,” Bessent said. “You’re either with us or you’re with the Iranians.“
The Trump administration is shuttering two of the three US Department of Agriculture research projects studying cyclospora after the foodborne parasite has sickened tens of thousands of Americans during the summer, Politico reported on Sunday.
The two projects were defunded by Congress earlier in the year, while the third is due to be moved in coming months from Maryland to Iowa as part of a broader USDA reorganization, according to the report.
Although the third project remains funded, all scientists working on the parasite have declined to relocate to Iowa, Politico reported, citing people familiar with the plans and internal documents.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
“None of the research has been disrupted, and research will continue without disruption,” a USDA spokesperson said, while pointing to Congress over the funding cuts.
Congress did not appropriate funding for the two research projects that were being undertaken at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center outside Washington DC for the 2026 fiscal year in the Agriculture Appropriations Act, the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The spokesperson added that the Agricultural Research Service is working with research leaders to ensure an orderly transition of the programs.
Robert Tait
Having reportedly read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, in French, during a military tour of duty in Iraq, Jamieson Greer considered himself an unlikely target for accusations of francophobia.
But Donald Trump’s US trade representative, hitherto one of the president’s less high-profile cabinet members, found himself in that uncomfortable position amid the acrimonious collapse of bilateral trade talks with Canada that now threatens to degenerate into an all-out trade war between the two close trading partners whose economies are tightly intertwined.
An apparent pending deal between Washington and Ottawa aimed at avoiding damaging tit-for-tat tariffs broke down at the last minute, with Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, claiming his country had come “under attack” from the US.
Among the multiple and complex points of disagreement was a Canadian accusation that US negotiators had pressed for a weakening of legal protections for the French language, which is most heavily spoken in the province of Quebec.
Canadian provisions include legislation that mandates streaming and online video companies to invest in and promote Canadian content and promote the French language. Carney cast US objections to such regulations as a deal breaker, and said they amounted to “threats to French language and culture”.
For Greer, a fluent French speaker who once served as a Mormon missionary in Belgium, France and Luxembourg, the charge was too much. “I speak French, too,” he told CNBC, dismissing the claims as “a funny, fake story”.
Donald Trump on Sunday said NBC’s Kristen Welker – host of Meet the Press – should face “rebuke or punishment” from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Welker, during a live segment for a local Washington DC affiliate, described the success record of political candidates whom the president had endorsed as “mixed”. The segment aired prior to Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press.
Trump “is going to loom large over these midterms,” Welker remarked on that live shot. “He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He’s had some mixed results.”
But Welker went on to mention Trump’s endorsement of appointed interim US senator Darline Graham, sister of her late predecessor Lindsey Graham, who was successful in her primary battle.
Nonetheless, the president then took verbal aim at Welker with a social media post deriding her as the “Unpopular ‘Hostess’ of … Meet the Fake Press,” accused her of “purposeful inaccuracy” and warned that she would “be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment”.
The post also said that Trump hoped his appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr – and Carr’s colleagues on the commission – “take this Threat to our Country very seriously”.
Once Meet the Press actually started on Sunday, a guest analyst on the show said “the single most important factor in who the Republican nominee will be in [the presidential election of] 2028 will be who Donald Trump endorses”.
House Democrat plans to introduce bill to nullify Trump’s ‘Lake America’ executive order
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
As House representatives return from the summer recess, one Democrat has already set in motion a plan to nullify Donald Trump’s latest conceited executive order.
The president signed an executive order on Thursday directing the federal government to rename Lake Ontario, making it Lake America, amid his escalating trade war with Canada.
“We have a gulf and we have a lake – now all we need is an ocean. Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific,” he told reporters, sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. “Maybe we’ll change them both.”
But House Democrat Debbie Dingell said she plans to introduce a bill later today to nullify the name change, titled the “Hands Off Our Great Lakes Act”.
“People do not understand how intertwined our two countries are,” Dingell told Politico, adding: “And this is insane, this naming Lake Ontario ‘Lake America.’”
Dingell said she had accrued more than 100 signatures from fellow House Democrats in a letter to the president, urging the Trump administration “to change its diplomatic approach with our closest ally, Canada, and recognize the importance of the United States-Canada relationship”.
“I grew up in a small town called St Clair, and when I got up and looked out my bedroom window every day, I didn’t see America. I saw Canada,” Dingell said. “We lived that close. Canada was as close to us as [the Cannon House Office Building] is to the Capitol.”
Trump’s order directed federal agencies to adopt the name-change on US maps, documents and databases. Google Maps has changed Lake Ontario’s name to Lake America for US users to reflect the president’s executive renaming order.
Meanwhile, the president posted overnight on his Truth Social website:
For many years, the USA has been losing more than 60 Billion Dollars a year with Canada. Why??? Our long ago stolen businesses are now coming back to America in order to avoid paying tariffs. They are lining up, just like the rest of the World!!!
In other developments:
-
Trump and Canada continued a verbal duel on Saturday over the US government’s administrative renaming of Lake Ontario, with the Ontario premier erecting a giant sign saying “Lake Ontario. Now and Always” – and the American president posting a video of him tearing down an avatar of that sign, erecting a replacement saying Lake America, and dancing to YMCA. Rhetoric over the naming of Lake Ontario is the public face of an escalating trade dispute between the US and its northern neighbor involving a 50% US tariff on Canadian steel and retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.
-
The White House “border czar,” Tom Homan, denied on Sunday that deporting British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos just a day after being arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amounted to preferential treatment. Homan said it was his understanding that Yiannopoulos, 41, had overstayed what he believed to be a visitor visa, had not appeared at an immigration hearing and was issued a final order of removal on 22 July.
-
Trump on Sunday said NBC’s Kristen Welker – host of Meet the Press – should face “rebuke or punishment” from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Welker, during a live segment for a local Washington, DC, affiliate, described the success record of political candidates whom the president had endorsed as “mixed”. The segment aired prior to Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press.
-
Michigan’s Democratic US senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed apologized to the state’s Jewish Democratic Caucus on Saturday for comments he made after an attack on a synagogue in March, which he tied to Israel’s actions in the Middle East. “My comments may have been misconstrued to justify something I did not mean to justify,” El-Sayed told reporters after he addressed the caucus at a party convention in Lansing. “To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”
