Closing summary
Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here.
Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
Congressmen Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales announced they will resign from their seats in the House of Representatives, following high profile allegations of sexual misconduct. The House ethics committee announced earlier in the day that it has launched an investigation into Democratic congressman Swalwell, after reported allegations of inappropriate behavior, sexual assault and rape. Over the weekend, Swalwell ended his bid for California governor amid the accusations against him. Later in the day, Gonzales, a Republican from Texas, announced he will file paperwork to retire tomorrow, amid growing calls for his expulsion after he acknowledged having an extramarital affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.
Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV exchanged retorts after Trump posted and then deleted an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure. As he began a 10-day tour of four African countries, Leo told reporters he didn’t “want to get into a debate” with Trump, but added that “the message of the gospel” is being “abused”. Trump, meanwhile, called the pontiff “weak on crime” and dismissed his criticism of the war on Iran. The feud saw conservative Christian personalities forced to choose between their religious and political leaders, with Catholic vice-president JD Vance saying the Vatican should “stick to matters of morality” and Senate majority leader John Thune telling reporters: “I would leave the church alone.”
As the US blockade of the strait of Hormuz continues, Trump vowed that any Iranian ships that came “anywhere close” would be “immediately ELIMINATED”. In a post on Truth Social, the president added that US forces would use “the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal.”
The US military struck another vehicle in the eastern Pacific, killing two people. Following an attack on Saturday that killed five people, this strike brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the US military to at least 170 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.
A federal judge dismissed Trump’s $10bn lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its publisher Dow Jones, after the president claimed the Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet defamed him by reporting on the president’s alleged message to Jeffrey Epstein, as part of the late sex offender’s 50th birthday album. Judge Darrin Gayles said that Trump’s legal team failed to proved that the Journal acted with “actual malice”, a key requirement in defamation cases involving a public figure.
The Senate returned to work today, while the House held a brief procedural session before getting back to regular business on Tuesday. Lawmakers have a vast agenda to tackle on their return, including a funding bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subagencies affected by the record-breaking partial government shutdown, now in its ninth week. They’ll also keep debating Trump’s restrictive voter ID legislation, hash out a reconciliation bill to fund federal immigration enforcement, deal with the potential expulsion of four members of Congress and bring a war powers resolution to curb US military action in Iran to the floor in both chambers.
Updated
Donald Trump will participate in a meeting with the US ambassador to China tomorrow, per the White House.
The meeting will be held in the Oval Office and is currently closed to press.
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