We're not going to accept anything other than what we put.
I would suggest that McCarthy not meet until he get put
something in writing, his words have no meaning.
Put it in writing, if it's anything less, we're not going to accept it.
>> You don't think he's gonna make any changes in a compromise with White House?
>> We have a winning hand.
>> We saw there were members of the House Freedom Caucus, Ralph Norman, Bill Good,
saying these negotiations with Biden, you can't trust him, what's the point?
Why are we doing this?
We've got a winning hand, they are obviously feeling like they're in a very
strong position, or at least that it is advantageous for them to project that they
feel that they're in a very strong position right now.
The caucus as a whole, by the way, put out sort of a warning saying no more
discussion on watering it down all of these negotiations, the bill,
the compromises, period.
And so we are at a bit of an impasse because on the Senate side or
the Democratic side, Chuck Schumer says that the House bill is dead on arrival,
that's the one of course that would raise the debt ceiling, but
would also cut spending by $4.8 trillion.
And we came into this morning with both Biden and Kevin McCarthy saying that
the conversation is still ongoing, they see sort of a structure, a path ahead.
But as of when we're about to begin the show today, Republican
negotiators apparently walked out of the room where negotiations were happening and
blamed the White House for holding up discussions.
We don't know a lot yet about what happened in that room, but
we do have a couple of statements from Representative Garret Graves.
He says, until people are willing to have reasonable conversations about how you
can actually move forward and do the right thing, then we're not gonna sit here and
talk to ourselves, we decided to press pause because it's just not productive.
Bear in mind, look, we've done a lot of coverage about what it is that they're
asking for, and we will continue to update that because they keep adding new things
to it, in fact, we have a little bit coming up later on in the show.
But they are not only just freezing government spending, they're dialing it
back to the previous year's spending, significant cuts across the board.
And if it seems weird to you that they're so willing to let this entire thing just
blow up, well, I mean, they don't want even the limited spending to go through.
They want to cut all of these programs to the bone, and so we'll see what ends up
happening, perhaps over the weekend, perhaps cruising into next week.
But we do seem to have hit a little bit of a rough patch.
>> Yeah, so it might surprise you to find out that I agree with both
the Republican congressmen in part.
So the first guy said, put it in writing, otherwise it doesn't mean anything.
That is correct, that is actually correct political strategy.
Perhaps Representative Jayapal could learn a thing or two from that,
when her earlier strategy was do not put anything in writing,
just go with the strategy and this is a literal quote trust Biden.
That was the name of the strategy and Biden, of course, screwed progressives and
gave them none of what they wanted and not getting it in writing was a disaster.
And so here is the Freedom Caucus playing correct politics.
We draw the line and we stick to our position,
the other side is super weak, agrees with us, and we all know it.
So you just stay in this position and Biden will give you everything you want.
The progressives had the 100% wrong strategy, which is,
I don't know forget our agenda, just whatever you want Biden, okay?
You imagine they're gonna give it to us later, did they?
Did they? Was that a good strategy?
So I'm not talking about policy, on policy the Republicans are 100% wrong but
on politics, that is correct.
The second guy said, we have a winning hand,
now why would they have a winning hand?
Biden could at any moment, say, use the 14th Amendment that very clearly says,
that he can do this, he can raise the debt limit, okay?
So this is a nonsense conversation in the first place all imagine theater.
The Democrats have agreed to this theater because they also want to cut spending,
it's super obvious.
And on top of that the Republicans, they say, [INAUDIBLE] yeah,
we'll crash the American economy.
Well, any politician that isn't brain dead would say, go for it,
big guy see how it turns out for you.
Remember when Bill Clinton said to Newt Gingrich, go for
it shut the government down, let's see how it turns out for
you and it turned into an absolute disaster for the Republicans.
The same thing would happen here, but Biden is a Republican,
he is a Republican on these issues.
There's no reason in the world to offer any of these cuts,
let alone the drastic cuts, except for the fact that he agrees with them.
But not one mainstream media reporter in the entire
country has written the possibility that Biden,
who has offered those same cuts throughout the entirety of his career,
he's offered these kind of cuts dozens of times in his career.
It has not occurred to a single national reporter that maybe he wants the cuts and
that's why he's, golly, gee, I have such a weak hand.
Do I have to give the Republicans everything again?
>> [LAUGH] >> It's only the 20th time in a row but,
hey, listen, you're national reporters, shut up and write my propaganda,
which is that there's nothing I can do.
There's a million things you could do, here's one last one,
this is now like 8th on the list, right?
He could just say, 14th Amendment, I'm done with this conversation.
At a bare minimum, that would lift a debt ceiling and they would go to the courts,
and the courts would take about a year to decide it at a bare minimum.
And the courts would have to say it's a political decision, but that's so
easy all that is super easy.
But the 8th priority could be like, you know what, guys?
76% of Americans want tax increases on the rich.
Three quarters of the country, including a majority of Republican voters, you see me
criticize Republican voters all the time, here the Republican voters are correct.
The majority of them also want tax increases on the rich, increases.
They're not getting $1 of that in this so called compromise or
whatever the hell they're calling this load of crap, why?
Because Biden doesn't want tax increases on the rich,
because all of his donors are the rich.
But this hasn't occurred to a single national reporter covering
politics in America.
Not one of them come on man look, there's a thousand stories just in today's news.
As I read it, I was like, I forgot people actually believe this crap,
no it's all propaganda.
Mainstream media just does marketing for corporate rule,
they're not at all in the news business.
It's outrageous that they foist this theater upon you and
go along with the charade of the Democrats and
the Republicans with their good cop bad cop strategy, all of this is crap, Max.
>> I just can't get over those clips you showed.
I mean, I think it shows a Republican Party completely disconnected from
reality.
I mean, we have a winning hand, are you serious?
Kevin McCarthy's debt deal is hanging by a single Republican vote,
you've got George Santos, who's about to rent a seat at Rikers.
You have one congressman who's saying in public that Kevin McCarthy's
word is worthless to him, and a party where the hardliners
don't want any talk about raising taxes or cutting loopholes, and
some moderate Republicans won't vote for it if they don't.
So forget negotiating with Joe Biden I'll be amazed if
Kevin McCarthy can actually get this deal through his own caucus.
I mean, it would be fitting though, if the only way we get to
actually raising taxes on the rich is the complete collapse of the GOP,
essentially forcing Biden to do it with no other option.
That's how hard we'd have to drag him there.
>> There's no way that Biden will increase tax on the rich, he won't do it.
If the Republicans said, yeah, we're okay with it,
go ahead he'd be like, the postman said I couldn't do it.
I found someone with the parliamentarian.
>> I fell off my bike.
>> The DoorDash driver said I couldn't do it, golly gee,
only three quarters of Americans want it?
I couldn't find a way to do it, they're liars, total and utter liars.
And the tough guys in the fourth estate haven't figured out that maybe politicians
might be lying to them.
Yeah, as Max pointed out,
the republicans in reality have the weakest hand I have ever seen.
But every, not just Biden,
everyone in Washington is pretending that they have a super strong hand and
that Biden is forced to negotiate with them and give them everything they want.
>> Let me throw out just a couple of things, and then I wanna ask both of you
a question before I move on to possibly the best story of the show.
I do wanna add more of the republicans are now pushing for
some sort of big border crackdown to be a part of this bill because obviously,
how could you pay off your country's debts without doing something about the border?
I don't know, that's what they're saying.
I know that it doesn't matter, I know that nobody cares about what's true or
whatever, and I'm sure at some point we have covered this on TYT.
But I just looked up previous raises to the debt ceiling,
did you know Ronald Reagan raised it 18 times?
That is crazy, Donald Trump raised it twice and
suspended it twice while adding over $7 trillion to the debt.
And that is just amazing, by the way, Barack Obama had to raise it seven times,
and I really just wish I know that they won't.
You've sort of sketched out why having this sort of constant crisis is
a good thing for both the republicans and the democrats.
But this is like theoretically bad for
Biden right now because the republicans can hold it hostage.
But it's also theoretically bad for whoever president Carlson next time around
because the democrats could hold it hostage.
In theory, for the proper functioning of government, you'd want to get rid of this.
But again, if you don't want government to really function, if you wanna be able to
set aside several months a year to just debating this sort of thing and
using it as an excuse to constantly cut spending,
then it's useful to have an inherently broken system.
But that said, this new push to get Biden to use the 14th amendment to make sure
that the debt ceiling is raised, has received some strong push-back
from a completely unbiased party, the chamber of commerce.
>> [LAUGH] >> They warned that there would be
potentially disastrous economic effects if he were to use the 14th amendment to avoid
the country defaulting on its debts.
And that is at least mildly interesting because one would think that a business
lobbying group would be least interested in the global economy being destroyed.
But here is their argument, it is the chamber's view that attempting to invoke
so called powers under the 14th amendment would be as economically calamitous as
a default triggered by a failure to lift the debt limit in a timely manner.
And by the way, one of the argument that he gives,
I think there's maybe worthy of discussion is that, sure, he could use it.
He could raise the debt ceiling, but that would at least have some sort of legal
challenge to it, which would take time.
And what if the SCOTUS says you can't raise it while we're waiting for
the adjudication and thus we pass past the X date, then okay, theoretically,
I guess that could be a problem.
It doesn't seem like an unavoidable one, but it's potentially a problem.
But to be fair, that is not the case that Neil Bradley is making,
the chief policy officer for the Chamber of Commerce.
He's not just saying, I don't support it because there isn't time, he also says,
they don't have the power.
So, like, one of the head guys at one of the head business lobbying groups
wants this sword to continue hanging over the neck of American democracy.
>> So think about why guys but John's, of course, right,
Chamber of Commerce represents business interests.
If we don't lift the debt ceiling, then the market crashes, the economy crashes,
the last thing Chamber of Commerce wants.
So why are they saying that to take away a tool from Biden making sure that
the debt ceiling is lifted?
It's because they know with absolute certainty that this is theater.
They know with absolute certainty that Republicans and
Democrats are bought because they're the ones who bought them.
If they thought there was any chance that they are not going to lift the death
ceiling, they would never be in favor of taking away the 14th amendment as a tool
in this case.
Never, they know with more certainty than anyone
else that they're never gonna do it.
It's just an excuse to cut spending and
make sure all of the money goes to business interest.
But not a single national media reporter has figured it out, right?
So guys, we live in totally different realities.
We don't have to discuss the right wing reality with the, all the doctors
are wrong, all the scientists are wrong, there was no racism in America.
We know about their alternate reality, that's well known.
But mainstream media and everyone in Washington lives in a completely different
reality than the rest of us.
Because sometimes I'll say these things on social media and
everyone who's under 35 will say, Cenk, that's so obvious.
Why would you bother stating that the Democrats and
Republicans are engaging in theater and of course they could lift a debt ceiling
at any time, and the Democrats just wanna do the same cuts.
That's so obvious, did you just catch on to that?
And everybody in Washington would be like,
you think the Democrats also want to do the cuts?
No, that sounds crazy.
They haven't even thought of it, again, not one article on it.
That's amazing, isn't it amazing?
At a bare minimum, no matter who's right or wrong, it's amazing that we live in
three completely different realities all on the same country.
>> Yeah, it's almost enough to make you think that the people who own the media
companies also want the cuts to happen.
>> No, really?
Why, John?
Are they multibillion dollar corporations?
>> I'm going to look at- >> Who also would gain billions of dollars
from these tax cuts?
And they wanna protect those by making sure that we get the money instead from
payments that would go to the average American and
average American that they couldn't give a rat's ass about?
And instead they want to protect their interest?
Sounds like a conspiracy theory.
>> Yeah. >> I once had a reporter tell me,
are you saying that these multi-billion dollar media corporations
are interested in profit?
>> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, I am saying that.
>> It's the playing pretend that really does make your nose bleed.
I mean, there are solutions for this debt ceiling problem and Democrats don't wanna
use one, the 14th Amendment and Republicans on the Supreme Court
are getting ready to take away another one when they overrule Chevron.
You won't be able to give this to a nonpartisan person or
put it with the Federal Reserve to deal with it.
They want this tool to stay there so they can keep this drama going.
It works for the people in power, even if it doesn't work for us.
And that's what's really what no one wants to say out loud.