5 DEBT CEILING PREDICTIONS
1. The combo of Secretary Yellen, Memorial Day, banker phone calls to members, and early market jitters will provide the necessary forcing mechanism for a deal.
2. This will be a mini-grand bargain, with some long-discussed elements thrown off of the sled for the sake of simplicity.
3. The House will vote first and Mr. Jeffries will vote “aye.”
4. The eventual deal will strengthen Speaker McCarthy’s hand with the conference (not weaken it) because of the clever “live to fight another day and cut another round of spending” framing Team Kevin has put in place.
5. President Biden will rightly take credit for the “ITYS” deal; Congressman Patrick McHenry will get a lot of press profiles and a lot of credit as well.
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5 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN PREDICTIONS
1. The Republican candidate who comes closest to beating Donald Trump will not run on electability (see Gerard Baker’s essential reading column on this), or on Trump’s inability to serve two more terms, or any other process argument – no, the candidate who does best will be the one who, as Baker also argues, goes directly at the frontrunner by saying he “has proved himself unfit.”
2. For the foreseeable future, the media will emphatically favor Tim Scott over Ron DeSantis; there will be more investigative pieces about the Sunshine State topper than about his Palmetto State rival; Establishment organs such as the Wall Street Journal ed board, will look for every opportunity to boost the Senator; stuff like Elon Musk’s encouraging pro-Scott tweet will be highly touted; and it will take a lot for the press to even consider putting Scott in the barrel. (If DeSantis has a mic fail at his announcement event, for instance, we will never ever hear the end of it……)
3. This will not be the last you hear of this exchange:
TOM LLAMAS: There’s a question America would love for you to answer. If you become president you’d be like Grover Cleveland and James Buchanan, you would-- you’d go as a bachelor, as a single man. Is-- is there someone in your life-- h-- is there time for a woman in your life right now?
SENATOR TIM SCOTT: Oh, there’s always-- there’s always time for-- a great relationship with a wonderful woman. And I thank god that that is happening. But-- so I’ll leave it there.
TOM LLAMAS: Okay.
SENATOR TIM SCOTT: Thank you--
TOM LLAMAS: We appreciate your time, and we thank you. Thank you for everything, Senator.
4. Glenn Youngkin will run for the Republican presidential nomination….when some mythical group of pols, donors, voters, and fairy princesses hand him the honor on a golden platter.
5. Jack Smith is going to find out things about Donald Trump that even the New York Times and Susie Wiles don’t know:
Federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents have issued a subpoena for information about Mr. Trump’s business dealings in foreign countries since he took office, according to two people familiar with the matter.
It remains unclear precisely what the prosecutors were hoping to find by sending the subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, or when it was issued. But the subpoena suggests that investigators have cast a wider net than previously understood as they scrutinize whether he broke the law in taking sensitive government materials with him upon leaving the White House and then not fully complying with demands for their return.
The subpoena — drafted by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith — sought details on the Trump Organization’s real estate licensing and development dealings in seven countries: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to the people familiar with the matter. The subpoena sought the records for deals reached since 2017, when Mr. Trump was sworn in as president.
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Note: I also predicted the Celtics and Lakers would meet in the NBA Finals.
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