Immigration vote further delayed in House | Americans’ fear of China spikes as North Korea fades, poll shows

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Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) answers questions during a House leadership press conference at the U.S. Capitol in March.

House Republican leaders Thursday night pushed back a vote on a compromise immigration bill until next week, after previously postponing it until Friday, the Hill writes.

The move, says the Hill, underscores the difficulty leaders are facing in winning votes, and how the stakes have been raised by the crisis at the border. The bill would provide a pathway to citizenship for so-called dreamers who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and earmark $25 billion for President Donald Trump’s border wall and other security measures.

Americans’ fear of China rises: A new poll from Axios/SurveyMonkey finds Americans’ fear of China has increased. A year ago, nearly half of Americans thought North Korea was the greatest immediate threat to the U.S. Today, that number had plunged and fear of China has risen, to the point where the two nations are essentially tied, the poll found.

The recent U.S.-China clashes in trade, national security, and tech have made Americans fear China as much as a rogue nuclear power headed by a dynastic, autocratic leader, according to Axios.

Americans say no to presidential self-pardons: Democrats and Republicans agree presidents should not pardon themselves, according to a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll’s findings come as federal authorities continue their months-long criminal investigation into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election and the actions of Trump’s campaign. As the AP writes, Trump raised the possibility of a self-pardon on Twitter earlier this month, writing: “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?” By a wide margin, Americans believe Trump is wrong: 85% think it would be unacceptable for presidents to pardon themselves if charged with a crime, and 76% think Congress should take steps to remove a president from office if they did so.

Haley blasts United Nations: A United Nations report condemning entrenched poverty in the U.S. is a “misleading and politically motivated” document about “the wealthiest and freest country in the world,” Trump’s ambassador to the U.N. said.

The Washington Post writes U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley criticized the report for critiquing the U.S.’s treatment of its poor, arguing that the U.N. should instead focus on poverty in developing countries such as Burundi. The U.N. report also faulted the Trump administration for pursuing policies it said would exacerbate U.S. poverty. “It is patently ridiculous for the United Nations to examine poverty in America,” Haley wrote in a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday, according to the Post. Vermont independent Sanders had initially asked Haley for comment on the U.N. report, and asked Haley to respond to statistics showing more than 30 million Americans lack health insurance.

Also read: U.S. pulling out of U.N. Human Rights Council.

Robert Schroeder is the White House reporter for MarketWatch. Follow him on Twitter @mktwrobs.

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