Read His Lips: Some New Taxes
Joe Biden looks to jump start talks with a new reddish/blueish line...
Please enjoy this Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald “Hollywood Palace Medley,” which comes with a full money-back guarantee:
Seriously, watch the video.
So much talent on offer.
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As I write this, President Biden’s mini-press conference closing the G7 is over, with his expected phone call with Speaker McCarthy from AF1 pending.
Based on this Sunday being an otherwise slow news day as of now, it is a safe bet that the question of whether the budget/debt talks can get back on track will dominate the day.
Because, make no mistake, those negotiations are not on track now. And nothing the president said at his news conference is likely to put them back on track.
To the contrary, actually….
So let’s do this….
I will tell you about the press conference.
I will show you the Ukraine news.
I will share the only two essential reads I found after working my way through a lot of websites and social media.
Then we shall call it a day here in Wide World of Newsville.
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On the Biden press conference, it is a little hard to give you an exact count of the overall numbers of questions and the topic breakdown, because the president lingered at the podium after what was supposed to be the end of the session and took a number of shouted questions, some of which were off mic.
I would say roughly, it went like this:
Debt/budget talks: 5 questions
Relationship with China: 2 questions
Ukraine: 1 question.
At one point, the president left the podium and started strolling around, as if at a town hall.
On a few occasions, Mr. Biden referred to the prime minister of Japan as “president,” and once he got the name of the South Korean president wrong.
None of the queries were particularly pointed. With the exception of a Japanese reporter who got called on, the rest of the members of the press corps who were recognized for questions were from the usual-suspect news organizations.
On the debt ceiling talks, the president kept up his general themes that a deal will be found and/but said that MAGA Republicans were the big stumbling block.
On those two points, the president’s declaration that tax “revenue is not off the table” is sure to make a deal less likely and sure to rile up Republicans of pretty much all stripes, not just super MAGA ones.
On the matter of the 14th Amendment, Mr. Biden seemed to play down its efficacy in the current crisis because of the lack of clarity about how and how quickly the courts would act if he were to invoke the move – while at the same time expressing an apparent interest in testing the power in the judicial branch for use down the road.
On whether he would be blamed for any default, the president sounded both defiant and realistic:
“On the merits of what I’ve offered, I would be blameless. On the politics, none of us would be blameless.”
(He played down the conflict with China over the balloon incident and was generally hopeful about détente.)
It is unclear what could come out of the Biden-McCarthy phone call that could re-jumpstart the talks. The sides are too far apart, with too many unbridgeable red lines, bright lines, and fault lines on each side to reconcile immediately.
Here, then, in order, are the most likely outcomes in the short term that avoid a June 1 default:
1. Treasury finds the money to move the X moment to July or August.
2. Biden and McCarthy strike a non-grand bargain to kick the can to September or December.
3. 14A.
4. A bipartisan, bicameral Gang gets formed and does fast work (semi-secretly blessed by the White House and Mitch McConnell) to produce a deal that raises the debt limit in return for a deficit-cutting commission.
5. A Biden-McCarthy grand bargain deal passes both chambers and is signed into law by 6/1.
Stay tuned on this topic.
McCarthy and Biden both know they need to be on a public track to renewed talks with the hope for success before the markets open on Monday.
Unfortunately, at this point the two sides are so far apart that a major market dip would be more likely to cause additional finger pointing than it would serve as a forcing mechanism for a deal.
That is a problem, because a market reaction was, once upon a time and/but not that long ago, our best bet for a forcing mechanism.
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On Ukraine:
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Bakhmut was “only in our hearts,” hours after Russia’s defense ministry reported that forces of the Wagner private army, with the support of Russian troops, had seized the city in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking alongside U.S. President Joe Biden at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Zelenskyy said the Russians had destroyed “everything.” “You have to understand that there is nothing,” he said.
“For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts,” he said. “There is nothing in this place.”
The Russian ministry statement on the Telegram channel came about eight hours after a similar announcement by Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin. Ukrainian authorities at that time said that fighting for Bakhmut was continuing.
The eight-month battle for Bakhmut has been the longest and probably most bloody of the conflict in Ukraine.
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ESSENTIAL READING
* The New York Times with a breathless account of the tensions within the Trump legal team, which could mean nothing or everything (but more likely nothing).
* Dan Balz on Democratic analyses of recent election results that lead the party to think their chances of keeping the White House in 2024 are pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
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