Closing summary
Ron DeSantis will announce his campaign for president tomorrow, not at a public event surrounded by well-wishers and allies, but on Twitter with the company’s owner Elon Musk. We’ll see how that goes for him. Meanwhile, in Washington, negotiations between Joe Biden’s team and deputies of Kevin McCarthy over raising the debt ceiling continued, with the Republican speaker sounding optimistic about their prospects by the afternoon. Remember: 1 June remains the best estimate of a deadline for a deal, after which the US government could default and potentially send the economy crashing down.
Here’s what else happened today:
A Trump-allied Pac called DeSantis’s announcement plans “one of the most out-of-touch campaign launches in modern history.”
Mitch McConnell thinks everyone should “relax”.
Special counsel Jack Smith may soon wrap up his investigation of the classified documents Trump kept at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and recommend whether to charge the former president or his allies, according to a report.
House Republicans auctioned off chapstick used by McCarthy. No idea why they did this. Rightwing representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was the winner, and paid $100,000 for it.
House Democrats rallied their troops to oppose spending cuts the GOP is likely to demand in exchange for supporting a debt limit increase.
Updated
Ron DeSantis has spent months positioning himself for his imminent presidential run – much to the displeasure of Donald Trump, who has taken to hurling insults at him.
Thus, it’s no surprise that the former president’s allies have hurled vitriol at DeSantis’s reported plans to announce a president campaign on Twitter.
“This is one of the most out-of-touch campaign launches in modern history. The only thing less relatable than a niche campaign launch on Twitter, is DeSantis’ after party at the uber elite Four Seasons resort in Miami,” read a just-released statement from Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Make America Great Again Inc political action committee supporting Trump’s bid for president.
It continues:
Everyday more and more Americans are realizing just how out of step Ron DeSantis is with their values and how unelectable he really is. From his votes to cut Social Security and Medicare, to his support of a national sales tax that would raise taxes on 90% of families, to his vote in support of Obama’s TPP which sent jobs to China, to his vote against funding for President Trump’s wall, Ron DeSantis just isn’t ready to be President. President Trump is ready on day one to turn our country around, reverse Biden’s disasterous policies and make America great again.
Last week, reports suggested DeSantis essentially views the campaign for the US presidency as a two-horse race between Joe Biden and himself.
The Florida governor privately told top donors that only he, Donald Trump and Joe Biden were “credible” candidates for president in 2024 – adding that he is the only Republican who can beat the incumbent Democrat.
Here’s the full report if you missed it:
Lawyers for Harlan Crow, the rightwing billionaire whose friendship with and gifts to the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas are the focus of swirling scandal, have rejected Senate Democrats’ request for answers about the relationship.
In a letter first reported by Bloomberg News, lawyers for Crow said the Senate judiciary committee, which requested a list of gifts to Thomas, had not “identified a valid legislative purpose for its investigation and is not authorised to conduct an ethics investigation of a supreme court justice”.
Democrats who control the committee, the lawyers said, were “targeting Justice Thomas for special and unwarranted opprobrium”.
In response, the committee chair, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said: “Harlan Crow believes the secrecy of his lavish gifts to Justice Thomas is more important than the reputation of the highest court of law in this land. He is wrong.”
Thomas’s relationship with Crow, and his failure to declare many gifts, has long been known. But in April, the nonprofit news site ProPublica released a series of bombshell reports.
It said Thomas took and failed to declare gifts including luxury travel and stays at properties owned by Crow; that Crow bought property from Thomas, in which Thomas’s mother still lives; and that Crow paid for private schooling for Thomas’s great-nephew, who the justice has said he raised “as a son”.
Observers said Thomas has clearly broken the law.
Thomas said he did not declare gifts from Crow because he had been advised he did not need to do so, but would do so in future.
Crow has said he has never discussed politics or business before the court with Thomas or his wife, the far-right activist Ginni Thomas.
My colleague Johana Bhuiyan is at a Wall Street Journal event with Musk, where he had the following to say about DeSantis’s campaign launch on Twitter:
“I’m not at this time going to endorse any particular candidate but I am interested in X/Twitter being somewhat of a public town square where more and more organizations … make announcements.”
Musk was asked what he’s looking for in a president.
He said:
I’ve said publicly that my preference and the preference for most Americans is really to have someone fairly normal in office. I think we’d all be quite happy with that actually. Someone who is representative of the moderate views that most of the country holds in reality.
“The way that it’s set up is we have … people who push people to the edge … that causes a swing to the left or right during the primaries. And a shift toward the center for the general election. A fairly normal and sensible to be the president, that would be great.”
Updated
Ron DeSantis has offered a taste of what we might expect from a Ron DeSantis presidency, telling a Christian audience in Orlando on Monday night how he would plan to reshape – or further reshape, given the lasting effect’s of Donald Trump’s three appointments in four years – the US supreme court.
Speaking to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, DeSantis said: “I think if you look over the next two presidential terms, there is a good chance that you could be called upon to seek replacements for Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito and the issue with that is, you can’t really do better than those two.”
But DeSantis also alluded to a chance to replace Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal appointed by Barack Obama who is now 68, or perhaps Elena Kagan, another Obama appointee who is now 63, should he win the White House and serve two full terms.
He said: “So it is possible that in those eight years, we have the opportunity to fortify justices … Alito and Thomas as well as actually make improvements with those others, and if you were able to do that, you would have a 7-2 conservative majority on the supreme court that would last a quarter-century.”
According to the Washington Post, DeSantis’s comments met with “raucous applause”.
The governor also took a shot at John Roberts, the conservative chief justice who has sided with liberals on key decisions, including the one last year which eliminated federal abortion rights.
“If you replace a Clarence Thomas with somebody like a Roberts or somebody like that,” DeSantis said, “then you’re gonna actually see the court move to the left, and you can’t do that.”
It is safe to say that under Roberts, the court has moved firmly right.
Just last year, Alito wrote the opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, which removed abortion rights. Thomas wrote the opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen, striking down a gun control law in place since 1911.
More:
Here is a bit more from that NBC report on the upcoming DeSantis announcement:
The launch will closely tie together the billionaire tech mogul with one of the Republican Party’s rising stars. Musk has been an admirer of DeSantis, who also regularly chides corporate media. Last year, Musk said he would support the governor if he were to run for president.
The announcement will coincide with a retreat for high-end fundraisers pledged to support DeSantis in Miami. Bundlers will gather at the Four Seasons hotel from May 24-26, receiving briefings from campaign staff, combined with time to call around to raise money for the campaign.
The DeSantis team has been in talks with Musk for at least the last few weeks, according to a source familiar with the discussions. In those conversations, the source said, Musk has indicated he doesn’t think former President Donald Trump can win back the White House.
“He’s interested in the future, and he’s interested in winning again,” the person said.
It’s not clear if Musk will formally endorse DeSantis on Wednesday, but another source said that within DeSantis’ team, his participation is viewed as a clear sign of support for the governor.
The campaign of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and a 2024 presidential candidate, said DeSantis was like Donald Trump but “without the charm”.
Ahead of DeSantis’ presidential campaign announcement tomorrow, a memo from Haley’s campaign called out DeSantis’ inability to interact with voters and lack of people skills, Politico first reported.
“The glaring difference between the two is DeSantis’ inability to interact directly with voters. The last several months have been filled with brutal headlines about his lack of basic people skills,” read a memo from Haley’s campaign manager Betsy Ankney.
“Ron DeSantis is like Trump, drama and all – but without any of the charm,” the memo continues.
Trump entered the presidential race after last year’s midterm elections, reported the Hill. Hayley entered the presidential race in February.
Updated
DeSantis plans presidential announcement on Twitter with Elon Musk - report
Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis will tomorrow evening officially announce his presidential campaign in a virtual appearance with Elon Musk, NBC News reports, citing three sources familiar with the plans.
The kickoff will take place at 7pm eastern time on Twitter Spaces, which is part of the social media platform Musk bought last year. DeSantis has been expected for months to launch a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, which will put him up against Donald Trump, the current frontrunner in the race.
Musk, meanwhile, is the CEO of Tesla and one of the world’s richest people. He’s exhibited a conservative streak in recent years, particularly after his acquisition of Twitter and decision to unban a number of controversial accounts, including Trum’p’s.
Here’s more from NBC about the launch:
Musk and DeSantis will host an event on Twitter Spaces, the site’s platform for audio chats, on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET. It will be moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is a Musk confidant and DeSantis supporter.
That same evening, the campaign will release a launch video, and DeSantis will begin visiting several early states after Memorial Day.
The relationship could be a significant boost for DeSantis by giving him an introduction to, and credibility with, Musk’s massive following — including his 140 million Twitter followers. But it could prove a burden should DeSantis become distracted by the tycoon’s many controversial comments.
Updated
As he waded through a crowd of reporters in the Capitol, a tenacious Fox News camera operator managed to capture Kevin McCarthy’s latest thoughts on the debt ceiling talks:
Reporter asks about debt limit negotiations with President Biden: “You said before you’re not even close. Has that changed?”
— The Recount (@therecount) May 23, 2023
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy: “We’re at the point we are … We know exactly where our differences are.” pic.twitter.com/15xqtwMQAN
Debt limit deal possible before 1 June: McCarthy
Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy said a deal on raising the debt ceiling is possible before 1 June, Politico reports:
MCCARTHY moments ago on addressing debt limit with Dems: “I believe we can still get there and get there before June 1.”
— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) May 23, 2023
The upbeat assessment comes after he earlier this morning said a deal is “nowhere near”.
Mitch McConnell to everybody: 'relax', US 'will not default'
The clock is ticking on the high-stakes debt limit negotiations ahead of the 1 June default deadline, after which the United States could face an economic calamity in the form of missed bond payments and other obligations. But the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, does not sound worried.
Here’s what he had to say, from CNN:
Mitch McConnell the optimist: “Everybody needs to relax. Regardless of what may be said about the talks … the president and the speaker will reach an agreement, it will ultimately pass on a bipartisan vote in both the House and the Senate. The country will not default.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 23, 2023
McConnell has largely stayed out of the talks, leaving the bargaining to Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy. That said, the Senate will have to approve whatever deal the two sides reach – should they indeed reach one – and at that point, McConnell will play a key role in getting the GOP to support the bill.
Updated
Several House Democrats called on the more centrist members of the Republican conference to denounce the proposed spending cuts that have been championed by the far-right Freedom Caucus.
“Where are all of those reasonable moderate Republicans today?” said Congresswoman Susan Wild of Pennsylvania. “They must be there. We think they’re there, but they are not speaking up and speaking out.”
.@RepSusanWild calls on moderate Republicans to hold their “extremist” colleagues accountable:
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) May 23, 2023
“Where are all of those reasonable moderate Republicans today? … They must be there. We think they're there, but they are not speaking up and speaking out.” pic.twitter.com/Z3y4bx8hbl
Congressman Pete Aguilar of California, the House Democratic caucus chair, criticized Republicans for not intervening earlier to prevent the budget proposal from passing the lower chamber.
“They could have voted with the American people to protect seniors and veterans and school teachers And instead they joined hands with Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos,” Aguilar said, referring to two of the far-right members of the House Republican conference.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House appropriations committee, attacked House Republicans’ proposed budget cuts as unrealistic.
“They cannot govern,” DeLauro said at the press conference on Capitol Hill this morning. “Because you can’t go back to 2022 and apply those numbers to the 2024 budget. It just doesn’t work.”
.@rosadelauro says Republicans are “unraveling” in their efforts to implement a FY2024 budget:
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) May 23, 2023
“They cannot govern. Because you can't go back to 2022 and apply those numbers to the 2024 budget. It just doesn't work.” pic.twitter.com/zFx8bRcbB7
DeLauro warned the proposed cuts would limit childcare access, slash nutrition benefits and threaten veterans’ healthcare if they were implemented equally to all non-defense discretionary spending.
“House Republicans did not release any 2024 spending bills until after they passed their ‘Default on America Act,’” DeLauro said. “And they now have to come to the realization that their default plan is unworkable.”
This morning, leading House Democrats spoke at a press conference on Capitol Hill hosted by the left-leaning group Courage for America to denounce Republicans’ proposed spending cuts as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling.
“The [Make America Great Again] majority wants the American people to make an impossible choice: accept devastating cuts or a devastating default,” said Congresswoman Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the House Democratic whip.
“They manufactured a crisis so they can bully and threaten the very people they were sent to Washington to represent.”
Leading House Dems hold a press conference at the Capitol to denounce Republicans’ proposed spending cuts. @WhipKClark: “The MAGA majority wants the American people to make an impossible choice: accept devastating cuts or a devastating default.” pic.twitter.com/yImK1A71Tt
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) May 23, 2023
Congressman Joe Neguse of Colorado, co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, warned House Republicans’ debt ceiling proposal “would impose draconian and cruel cuts that would harm everyday Americans”.
“The consequences of this manufactured crisis -- a crisis of their own invention -- would be catastrophic for the American people,” Neguse said.
“We intend to do the right thing by the American people, to do what we have done time and time again: pay our bills and avoid a disastrous default and put people over politics.”
The day so far
Negotiations between Joe Biden’s team and deputies of Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy are continuing in the shadow of a warning from Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, who confirmed that 1 June remains the deadline to raise the borrowing limit or spark a default. There are no signs yet that a deal is at hand, but things could always change, and this blog will let you know if they do.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Donald Trump will later today appear virtually in a New York City courtroom, where a judge will read out an order preventing him from attacking witnesses in his case over allegedly falsifying business records.
Special counsel Jack Smith may soon wrap up his investigation of the classified documents Trump kept at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and recommend whether to charge the former president or his allies, according to a report.
House Republicans auctioned off chapstick used by McCarthy. No idea why they did this. Rightwing representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was the winner, after paying $100,000 for it.
For the Guardian, Drew Hawkins looks into the case of John Kennedy, the Republican Louisiana senator whose at-times offensive statements betray an opportunistic, perhaps wily, approach to politics:
Senator John Neely Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, offended Mexicans across the world in a hearing on the FBI and DEA’s budget this month, calling for American military members and law enforcement agents to invade their country in order to “stop the cartels” while adding that Mexico would be “eating cat food and living in tent behind an Outback [Steakhouse]” if not for “the people of America”.
Mexico’s top diplomat condemned the comments as “profoundly ignorant”, and the country’s ambassador to the US called for a formal apology for the “vulgar and racist” language. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, urging the more than 37 million Americans of Mexican and other Latin American descent to “not to vote for people with this very arrogant, very offensive and very foolish mentality” in the future.
Besides hearing an update on the debt ceiling negotiations from Kevin McCarthy in their conference today, House Republican lawmakers … bid on ChapStick?
They did indeed, Politico reports:
NEW: During GOP conference today, House Rs did about a 15-min fundraising auction for chapstick used by Speaker McCarthy.
— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) May 23, 2023
The winner: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), whose winning bid was $100,000, her Spox confirms to me.
Others bid on it as well, but MTG ultimately won: And as bidding went on, McCarthy would sweeten the deal, throwing in agreeing to attend a dinner with donors/supporters for whoever wins, Spox confirmed.
— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) May 23, 2023
The chapstick specifically was a Rep. Aaron Bean campaign chapstick.
Updated
Ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign announcement tomorrow, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe reports that a program set up by his administration to hire police officers brought people to the state with checkered pasts:
Numerous police officers lured to new jobs in Florida with cash from Governor Ron DeSantis’s flagship law enforcement relocation program have histories of excessive violence or have been arrested for crimes including kidnapping and murder since signing up, a study of state documents has found.
DeSantis, who is expected to launch his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination this week, has spent more than $13.5m to date on the recruitment bonus program, which he touted in 2021 as an incentive to officers in other states frustrated by Covid-19 vaccination mandates.
“This will go a long way to ensuring we can have the best and the brightest filling our law enforcement ranks,” Florida’s Republican attorney general, Ashley Moody, said in April last year as DeSantis announced one-time $5,000 bonuses for new recruits.
Special counsel has almost finished investigating Trump – report
Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by attorney general Merrick Garland, is nearly finished with his investigation of Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents, and will decide whether to bring charges against the former president or his associates, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Smith has interviewed almost every employee at Mar-a-Lago, the south Florida club where federal investigators last year retrieved boxes of classified documents following a court-sanctioned search, and Trump’s associates are grappling with the possibility that he could face federal charges for keeping the material, the Journal says.
Garland appointed Smith late last year, and also tasked him with investigating Trump’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection, and the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Those inquiries remain ongoing.
Here’s more from the Journal’s report:
Some of Trump’s close associates are bracing for his indictment and anticipate being able to fundraise off a prosecution, people in the former president’s circle said, as clashes within the Trump legal team have led to the departure of a key lawyer.
In recent weeks prosecutors working for Smith have completed interviews with nearly every employee at Trump’s Florida home, from top political aides to maids and maintenance staff, the people said. Prosecutors have pressed witnesses—some in multiple rounds of testimony—on questions that appeared to home in on specific elements Smith’s team would need to show to prove a crime, including those that speak to Trump’s intentions, and questions aimed at undermining potential defenses Trump could raise, they said.
The special counsel team conducted a flurry of grand jury interviews in recent weeks that appeared to tie up loose ends, the people said.
The Journal couldn’t determine whether Smith has decided whether to charge Trump, or if he has presented a recommendation on the matter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who would ultimately make a final decision on any such charges. A spokesman for Smith declined to comment. A Trump spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment but has previously described the probe as a politically motivated witch hunt.
Smith’s team, which has been examining whether anyone tried to obstruct the criminal inquiry, has obtained evidence that appears to show Trump held on to sensitive documents after being asked to relinquish them, the people said. Last week the National Archives turned over to Smith’s team records of communications between then-President Trump and some of his advisers about how he could declassify documents, some of the people said, material that could help prosecutors overcome the defense that Trump believed he could do so verbally. CNN first reported the National Archives transfer.
Updated
More details have emerged in the crash of a truck outside the White House earlier this morning in which the driver was found to be possessing a Nazi flag, the Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:
A driver who was arrested after crashing into security barriers near the White House has been charged with threatening to kill or harm the US president, along with other crimes.
Police named the suspect as Sai Varshith Kandula from Chesterfield, Missouri. He was accused of threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on the president, vice-president or a relative, said a statement from the US park police, who have jurisdiction of the area where the struck barriers are located.
The driver was also charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless operation of a vehicle, and other criminal charges. He had been accused of having a Nazi flag on him.
Donald Trump is expected to gain a new challenger for the Republican presidential nomination tomorrow: Ron DeSantis.
The Florida governor will reportedly make his long-anticipated campaign announcement on Wednesday, and the New York Times reports that in a speech yesterday, DeSantis argued that he would do the best job in cementing the supreme court’s conservative tilt.
“You would have a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter-century,” he told the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Orlando. Trump has started attacking DeSantis in the run-up to his campaign announcement, but as the Times reports, the former president could only serve one four-year term if returned to the White House.
DeSantis, on the other hand, could be president for up to eight years – enough time to appoint another justice to the supreme court.
“I think if you look over, you know, the next two presidential terms, there is a good chance that you could be called upon to seek replacements for Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito,” DeSantis said. Both justices are conservatives who were in the majority in overturning Roe v Wade last year, among other decisions. The Times reported that DeSantis also reminded the crowd that liberal Sonia Sotomayor could retire in the years to come.
Fresh off of winning an expensive civil judgment against Donald Trump, advice columnist E Jean Carroll is once again suing the former president over statements he made about her on CNN:
The author and columnist E Jean Carroll will go back to court to demand “very substantial” additional damages from Donald Trump for the disparaging remarks he made about her during a televised CNN town hall just a day after he was found liable in a civil case for sexually assaulting her.
An amended lawsuit seeking an additional $10m in compensatory damages – and more in punitive damages – was filed in Manhattan on Monday by lawyers for Carroll, who say remarks made by the former president in response to her rape allegations have so spoiled her reputation that she lost her longtime job as an Elle magazine advice columnist.
On 9 May, a New York jury found that Trump had sexually abused the advice columnist in a New York department store changing room 27 years ago. It also awarded about $5m in compensatory and punitive damages: about $2m on the sexual abuse count, and close to $3m for defamation for branding her a liar.
Donald Trump will be in court in New York City today – though by video rather than in person, sparing the city the crowds and road closures that marked his in-person appearance when he was indicted on felony charges of falsify business records last month.
The Associated Press reports that the former president has been summoned by the judge in that case to hear an order preventing him from attacking witnesses. While Trump will appear virtually, his defense attorneys as well as prosecutors will be in the room.
Here’s more from the AP:
Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to the extra step of personally instructing Trump on the restrictions after listing them May 8 in what’s known as a protective order.
Trump is allowed to speak publicly about the case, but he risks being held in contempt if he uses evidence turned over by prosecutors in the pretrial discovery process to target witnesses or others involved in the case.
Trump pleaded not guilty April 4 to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to payments his company made to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Prosecutors say those payments were intended to reimburse and compensate Cohen for orchestrating hush money payments during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. Trump denies having had extramarital flings and says the prosecution is politically motivated.
Merchan’s protective order bars Trump and his lawyers from disseminating evidence to third parties or posting it to social media, and it requires that certain, sensitive material shared by prosecutors be kept only by Trump’s lawyers, not Trump himself.
Prosecutors sought the order soon after Trump’s arrest, citing what they say is his history of making “harassing, embarrassing, and threatening statements” about people he’s tangled with in legal disputes.
Merchan, noting Trump’s “special” status as a former president and current candidate, has made clear that the protective order shouldn’t be construed as a gag order and that Trump has a right to publicly defend himself.
'Nowhere near a deal yet': McCarthy
Punchbowl News reports that House speaker Kevin McCarthy has told Republicans in a closed-door meeting that a deal with Joe Biden over raising the debt ceiling is not imminent:
🚨🚨NEW — WHAT @SpeakerMcCarthy JUST TOLD HOUSE REPUBLICANS …
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 23, 2023
Inside a closed House GOP meeting:
“I need you all to hang with me on the debt limit.
“We are nowhere near a deal yet.”
“I told the president three things: No clean debt limit, no raising taxes, spend less money.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 23, 2023
“Remember where we were - they refused to negotiate .
“We owe Garret Graves and Patrick McHenry a round of applause.
“They made a mistake to not negotiate. Let's stay strong…
The speaker’s comments were a reversal of tone from yesterday, when he said he had “productive discussion” with Biden, but had not reached an agreement yet.
The Treasury isn’t just warning lawmakers about the critical need to raise the debt ceiling by June. The Washington Post reports that the department has written to US government agencies to determine if they could delay payments.
Here’s more from their story:
To push off the so-called “X-date” when reserves run dry, Treasury officials have asked their counterparts in other federal agencies about the flexibility of payments due before early June, one of the people said. Treasury has not asked federal agencies to postpone payments beyond their due dates, the person said.
The planning has become increasingly urgent in recent days. Last week, senior Treasury staff sent a memo to federal agencies instructing them to take additional steps to keep the Treasury Department closely apprised of their spending. In the memo — which was obtained by The Washington Post and has not been previously reported — David A. Lebryk, fiscal assistant secretary for Treasury, ordered agency officials to notify Treasury at least two days in advance all “deposits and disbursements” of between $50 million and $500 million. Payments above $500 million require five days notice, the memo said.
“Please stress to your staff the importance of these updates during this time and to ensure that your agency’s reports are accurate,” the memo said. “Your reporting offices should be reconciling reported amounts to actual payment activity to ensure the reliability of these reports during the critical period.”
Spokespeople for the White House declined to comment. A spokesperson for Treasury said: “To produce an accurate forecast around the debt limit, it’s critical that Treasury have updated information on the magnitude and timing of agency payments. As in prior debt limit episodes, Treasury will continue to regularly communicate with all aspects of the federal government on their planned expenditures.”
The debt ceiling standoff: a crisis Washington saw coming
Everyone in Washington DC – from Joe Biden to Kevin McCarthy to congressional rank and file young and old – could see the debt ceiling standoff coming for months. The US government tracks its spending and borrowing, and as far back as last year, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen began sending ominous letters to Congress warning that action must be taken to allow the government to continue paying its bills beyond a certain date. In her latest letter sent yesterday, she made clear that the government will have little time beyond the first day of June to agree to an increase.
For the GOP, the debt limit is one of the few pieces of leverage they have over the Biden administration, and they have demanded spending cuts and the enactment of conservative priorities – such as the cancellation of the president’s effort to cancel some student debt – in exchange for their votes in the House to raise the ceiling.
But Democrats had an opportunity to prevent this situation in the last Congress, when they controlled both the Senate and the House. As Politico reported yesterday, some lawmakers are expressing regret that they didn’t act to raise the borrowing limit then:
Looking back on the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, Tim Kaine has one big regret about a largely successful stretch of Democratic rule: That his party didn’t try to raise the debt ceiling on its own last year.
The Virginia senator believes that if Democrats had tried to hike the debt limit before the House GOP swept into a majority, even Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) might have gone along with it. But Biden’s party never moved on the issue. And six months later, Democrats are stuck doing exactly what they said they wouldn’t — negotiating on the debt ceiling with Republicans.
“If I could do one thing different,” Kaine lamented this week, it would have been a late-2022 debt hike. “And I was saying it at the time … ‘hey, we got the votes.’”
Updated
Treasury confirms 1 June remains debt limit deadline as deal remains elusive
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Congress got some bad news from Treasury secretary Janet Yellen yesterday afternoon in the form of a letter to top lawmakers that said early June, perhaps as soon as the first day of the month, is the day when the US government will run out of money and potentially default for the first time in history. Joe Biden and Republican speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy have since last week been negotiating some kind of bargain to prevent that from happening, but despite another round of face-to-face talks yesterday, have yet to reach an agreement. Yellen’s letter confirms that there is unlikely to be any wiggle room for the two sides if they want to prevent what is expected to be an economically catastrophic debt crisis. Expect to hear more about this long-running standoff throughout today.
Here’s what else is going on:
The debt limit will undoubtedly be discussed when House GOP leaders hold a press conference at 10am eastern time.
A Nazi swastika flag was found in a truck that crashed into White House security barriers last night. The driver has been arrested.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 2.30pm.
