This week the U.S. Had its
credit limit with lawmakers
still divided over the nation's
spending.
President Biden has been waving
off handwringing over misplaced
classified documents.
That brings us to the analysis
of New York Times columnist and
associate editor for the
Washington post.
Just yesterday the U.S. Hit its
debt ceiling.
The treasury says it's going to
take extraordinary measures to
keep the U.S. Government paying
its bills.
This could be the riskiest
showdown yet given that Kevin
Mccarthy offered those
guarantees to those Republican
hard-liners in exchange for
votes to make him house speaker
that there would be no raising
of the debt ceiling without
significant spending cuts.
>> It makes me nostalgic for the
debt ceiling crisis of 2011.
It seemed more or less like
normal people were in control
and now you've got people who
have the speaker in their hands.
I do think it is a pretty
serious crisis.
How did the Democrats react?
Some people say we should take
unilateral action.
Very unusual ways that Democrats
could act alone.
The 14th amendment says the
government has to pay off its
debt and they could invoke that
and hope the supreme court backs
them up.
My favorite one, print a
trillion dollar coin.
Somehow that's legal.
My favorite one is go to the
senate, go with a plan and throw
it on the house and hope you can
take some of the 18 house
Republicans in Biden districts,
hopefully public opinion by that
point will be so much against
going off the cliff that some of
them will break and they can
work with the Democrats and get
it passed.
That's a very tough road
actually.
>> The white house says they are
not budging.
One official said the debt limit
was raised without strings
attached a number of times in
recent years when president
trump was in the white house and
Republicans controlled congress.
>> The white house is absolutely
right to say emphatically and
repeatedly we are not
negotiating over the debt
ceiling.
Every time we have this
conversation I am going to
remind people that the debt
ceiling is not about new
spending, it is about spending
that has already happened.
We have bought the car.
We bought the ring.
We took the vacation.
We ate and digested the meal.
We have put it on the credit
card.
We have to pay the bill.
So the conversation about
raising the debt limit and the
conversation about spending cuts
on getting our fiscal house in
order which always seems to come
up on a Democrat is in the white
house is always forgotten when a
Republican is in the white
house.
Those would be separate
conversations.
Once they raise the debt ceiling
, everybody get together and
let's have a serious
conversation about how to get
the nation's spending under
control.
Let's say that a zero out the
budget.
Cut everything next year.
The bills for the car and the
ring and the meal will still be
showing up.
That's why they must be
separate.
>> To your point about the
halcyon days of 2011, it can't
be assumed that every Republican
isn't trying to avoid a fiscal
armageddon.
How do you see this resolving
within the conference?
>> I think they should have in
there pocket a plan that offers
the Republicans something.
The problem with the Republicans
and especially the more
hard-core ones is they are doing
what they always do.
They are going into a battle for
no plan on how to get out of it
and I don't think they even know
what they are asking for an
exchange and there's all sorts
of dissension over that and
there's just this nihilistic
wing who think that stopping the
system is what they are here to
do and that's not exactly
governance and you've just got
to deal with the fact that
they've got leverage right now
and that's why I think the
Democrats should have a back
pocket plan.
>> Is there a political pocket
for Democrats?
>> It sort of pains me to
discuss this through a political
lens but welcome to Washington.
There is a political benefit
because the Republicans will
look even crazier as we go down
this road.
They are more reasonable by the
day.
And we start watching the
markets reaction to the
craziness.
In 2011 we watched the nation's
credit rating get downgraded by
one of the rating agencies for
the first time in our history.
Markets are used to this and
they might start reacting long
before potentially June and
start issuing warnings.
If you don't take action here's
what we are going to do and the
cost of the American people
might not be seen immediately,
but it will be felt down the
road.
>> Antiabortion advocates from
across the country gathered in
Washington today for the annual
March for life, the first time
since the supreme court
overturned roe V. Wade.
Abortion opponents have really
met their primary goal of
guarding real -- cutting row.
Where does the movement go from
here?
>> So far it gets decentralized.
They used to have these big
national organizations and they
had a clear focus.
Now it is state-by-state and
what you are seeing is a lot of
national organizations being
sidelined by state organization
and the action is in the state
legislatures and there's wide
difference in what the
activities should be.
A lot of the catholic groups
want to put the emphasis on the
pregnancy crisis centers to help
women through this process and
support them in the way they
need to support them.
Others just want to work on the
law and get to a basically zero
abortion laws on the state
level.
I'm curious is about how this
evolves.
Public opinion is shifting and
national Republicans walking
away from hard-core pro-life
positions because it is so
unpopular.
The big questions for me, some
states look like it will be
complete abortion freedom in
some states with none.
Will popular opinion ever
evolved to the point where it's
20 weeks or 15 weeks or whatever
some midpoint will be, that's
where a lot of the country is.
>> It is still a key issue in
legislative elections.
There was a special election in
Virginia that was a proxy vote
about abortion access.
A Democrat won that race.
>> We were having discussions
about what kind of impact with
the dog's decision have on the
election.
Now we know and thanks to
justice Clarence Thomas and his
concurring opinion, he made it
clear that it wasn't just roe V.
Wade.
We should also look at Griswold
which had to do with
contraception and I think while
the movement may decentralize to
the states, we still have
senator Lindsey graham who in
the last congress introduced a
national abortion ban.
That is something that I think
will be of great interest to the
movement but also who is to say
that contraception, someone
might not introduce a national
contraception ban.
We are in crazy times and we
have to keep our imagination
open.
Just because the movement has
won on roe V. Wade doesn't mean
the movement will stop at the
national level.
>> This time last week we were
talking about president Biden's
handling of the classified
documents and how the white
house was handling that issue.
The president spoke on the
record about it.
He first chided reporters
suggesting there were more
important things to talk about,
and then he said this.
>> We found a handful of
documents that were filed in the
wrong place.
We immediately turned them over
to the archives of the justice
department.
We are fully cooperating and
looking forward to getting this
resolved quickly.
I think you're going to find
there is nothing there, I have
no regrets, I'm following with
the lawyers have told me to do.
>> So the substance of the case
is what it is.
On the messaging it appears the
white house has settled on
something of a mitigation
strategy.
He's out here talking about it.
>> He's going to have to talk
about it.
With the proviso that it's not
like trump, the story is a
little worse for the white house
this week than it was last week.
We have learned that they were
hoping to deep six it so it
would never come out so they
didn't report it for all those
times because they thought they
could make the justice
department happy and it would
never see the light of day.
That just doesn't happen often
in Washington.
I think the effort to try to
deep six it was not the right
thing to do and it's backfiring
on them.
We learned that the story of
revealing everything has been
mostly right but there have been
hiccups.
They said we completed our
search and then they find new
documents later so it gets a
little messier.
I still think it's medium to
medium small sized issue.
But I think the administration
as a general has a tendency to
hoard information.
This is may be a warning shot
that they should rethink some of
those habits.
>> What's your take?
>> Thanks to the great reporting
at my newspaper, I disagree that
the white house was trying to
deep six according to our
reporting yesterday, they were
taking the lead and giving
deference to the justice
department which was already
investigating and what we have
here I think is a political pr
response versus the legal
response and we have seen all
sorts of instances where those
interests are completely
difference and they are in