It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy.

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Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your inbox.

WE’RE NOW IN A DEBT CEILING CRUNCH. HERE ARE 5 THINGS TO KNOW
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews ([link removed])
Correspondent

It’s go time.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen now has pinpointed the deadline by which the nation must raise its debt ceiling — its borrowing limit ([link removed]) — or face a potentially catastrophic financial crisis.

And it is soon. Early June and possibly June 1, Yellen wrote in a letter ([link removed]) to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

A great many words will be said in the coming days about what should happen now. Here we want to use as few words as possible to simply lay out the dynamics and options ahead.

The calendar(s)

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Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

* Per the Gregorian calendar, June 1 is 30 days away.
* But on the House calendar ([link removed]) , it is a mere 12 working days away. And on the Senate calendar ([link removed]) , that is just 13 days away.
* Disjointed calendars. Adding to the challenge here, the two chambers' schedules are not synchronous. They are in Washington together for just two weeks, or eight days, this month.
* Potential key date: May 9. President Joe Biden is proposing a meeting ([link removed]) of the “Big Four,” the party leaders from each chamber of Congress, in just seven days.
* Why not sooner? Among the reasons is that Speaker McCarthy is traveling this week. May 9 is the first day the House returns to session after recess this week. (It is also National Lost Sock Memorial Day, ([link removed]) which seems a jolly metaphor for our lawmakers’ difficulty in reaching a compromise.)
* Other key date: May 19. Here is another issue. While the House returns to Washington on May 9, the Senate leaves on May 18 or 19 for a 10-day Memorial Day recess. The Senate then returns for session May 30 and 31. But that leaves just a day or two, potentially, before the earliest deadline. The upper chamber generally needs a week to move major legislation, due to its time-consuming rules.
* Why is this important? The short time frame to maneuver is a significant part of the strategy and decisions for both parties here.


The meeting
* For the proposed May 9 meeting, Biden invited: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
* Per sources familiar, McCarthy has agreed to meet on the 9th. But so far it is not clear if Sen. McConnell will go.
* One factor: Republicans want negotiations to be solely between the two key players here — Biden and McCarthy. Democrats see an advantage in numbers.
* Watch for: If McCarthy and Biden have a phone call or two, ahead of May 9. Ideally, May 9 should be closer to the end of talks than the beginning.

The agendas
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Photo by Brendan McDermid/Reuters
* Democrats are insisting on a “clean” bill that does nothing except raise the debt ceiling. Monday, Schumer teed up a two-year extension ([link removed]) for a possible Senate vote in weeks ahead.
* Republicans are insisting that any debt ceiling increase must come with concessions that begin to rein in future red ink.
* This is a tricky situation for both Biden and McCarthy.
* Biden needs to do conflicting things at once: Negotiate about overall federal spending, as Republicans demand, but somehow not do that in relation to the debt ceiling discussion. The White House on Monday indicated how it will approach the gymnastics here, writing, “President Biden … invited the four leaders to the White House to discuss the urgency of preventing default, as well as how to initiate a separate process to address the budget and fiscal year 2024 appropriations.” We will see.
* McCarthy has a different dilemma. He needs to come up with either a way to buy more time, such as a short-term debt ceiling increase, or turbo-track the conversation with his Republican conference about what demands, and in what form, are really bottom line for them.


The stakes

They are enormous.
* Full faith and credit of the United States. Multiple credit agencies negatively changed ([link removed]) how they viewed the U.S. as a borrower after the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, including a downgrade from AAA status ([link removed]) by Standard & Poor’s. The U.S. has always paid its bills. But that is at stake here ([link removed]) .
* A different fiscal crisis — a debt crisis — ahead. The U.S. has long been wading into risky waters with its levels of debt. So far, no problem. But in the coming years, the interest costs alone will weigh down the U.S. government. If not tackled soon, that would eventually mean large tax increases and large spending cuts, including potential cuts to cherished programs, like Social Security. Or the military. Only significant action soon can avert that.
* McCarthy’s speakership. As we’ve talked about here ([link removed]) , to become speaker, McCarthy allowed a rule that permits any single member of the House to force a vote to oust him. This is why, politically, he cannot sign onto a “clean” debt ceiling bill. The vast majority of his conference opposes it and the loudest voices proclaim it a betrayal. He needs to get something out of this negotiation, or his speakership is on the line.
* Biden versus McCarthy, aka Democrats versus Republicans. Ultimately, one or both sides will need to give in here. But both see this power struggle in relation to their 2024 hopes. The next election is adding to the stakes here.

The votes
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Photo by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Reuters
Margins are incredibly close in both chambers. And that means individual players will have outsized influence.

First, the House. Currently, there are 222 Republicans and 213 Democrats ([link removed]) .
* Four-vote margin. McCarthy can lose just four votes for a bill to pass with only Republicans, as he did last week on his own debt-ceiling bill. It squeaked by with just enough votes.
* 16 perennial no’s. Among the potential problems, McCarthy has a platoon of members who have never voted for a debt ceiling increase.
* Given that — and that the White House and Senate must get on board — it is impossible to see a final deal that gets only the votes of Republicans in the House. It will have to be bipartisan.
* A bill could easily pass the House with every Democrat and just five Republicans. Democrats would love that. But it would imperil McCarthy as a speaker.
* An option to watch. The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus ([link removed]) is proposing a commission that comes up with longer-term solutions for the government’s red ink. House Republicans don’t like that — they want action now. But if it is a choice between a commission and default, they may have to consider it.


Now, the Senate. Currently, there are 48 Democrats and 3 independents who voted with Democrats to organize the Senate (Sens. Angus King, Bernie Sanders, Kyrsten Sinema) and 49 Republicans. But remember: Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein remains out indefinitely, recovering from complications of shingles.
* Any debt or spending bill needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate.
* Currently, Senate Republicans are generally backing McCarthy and his push for spending cuts in return for raising the debt ceiling.
* But some vulnerable Democrats, like Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, are sticking with Democrats and saying it’s time for a debt-ceiling-only bill.
* Watch for: Swing Republicans, like Sens. Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Todd Young.
* Note: Some previous key Republicans with expertise in fiscal policy have retired. The lack of Sens. Rob Portman and Pat Toomey adds to the “Who knows?” dynamics.

More on politics from our coverage:
* Read: Writer E. Jean Carroll says in trial over alleged Trump rape that not reporting to police is “not surprising for somebody my age.” ([link removed])
* One Big Question: What could the Trump civil trial mean for legal accountability ([link removed]) in sexual violence cases? A sociology professor at Northwestern University weighs in ([link removed]) .
* A Closer Look: A Missouri judge blocked the state’s attempt to restrict gender-affirming care. Here’s what happens next ([link removed]) .
* Perspectives: A new book, “Merchants of the Right” by University of Arizona sociologist Jennifer Carlson, explores the culture surrounding guns ([link removed]) in America.

CROSSROADS: TALKING ABOUT RACE IN A DIVERSIFYING AMERICA

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Watch the video in the player above.

By Frank Carlson, @frankncarlson ([link removed])
Senior Coordinating Producer

Joshua Barajas, @Josh_Barrage ([link removed])
Senior Editor, Digital

Theodore Johnson, a retired U.S. Navy commander and Washington Post columnist, has spent years studying U.S. history, civil rights, and how the country can move forward on issues concerning race — including examining why many white Americans have difficulty accepting a diversifying country.

The U.S. has become much more multiracial, and more racially and ethnically diverse ([link removed]) , than what the U.S. Census has previously recorded. As the country diversifies, Black people and other historically marginalized groups are “acquiring more power that they didn’t have in earlier versions of America,” the author told the PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff in an “America at a Crossroads” report ([link removed]) airing Wednesday. “The main characters of the American story suddenly feel like they're being pushed to the margins. Like now they're an extra in someone else's story.”

Johnson said he can sometimes understand when people feel like they’re “being saddled with the blame” for the country’s long history of racism.

“What I don't understand,” he said, “is the way it's politically operationalized or weaponized to turn us against one another just so folks can win elections.”
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In this 1950s photo, Joe Humphrey, Theodore Johnson’s maternal great-grandfather, wears farming gear and stands in front of two small U.S. flags. Photo courtesy of Theodore Johnson
Johnson, whose maternal great-grandfather was a sharecropper raised in Georgia during the Jim Crow era, said he often leans into his personal story ([link removed]) when talking about race with white conservative Americans.

Instead of talking about the latest news about racism in the country, “I talk about my American journey, my family’s American journey, and almost invariably, people will find commonalities between my family's story,” Johnson said. They may have an immigrant story, or a story about growing up in poverty or rural communities, he added.

“Once those individual stories — the human element — there’s some connection there, then you can start talking about some of the structural and systematic issues or systemic issues that the nation needs to address,” he said.

If you’re reading this and have thoughts you want to share, I’d love to hear from you. Please email [email protected]. We won’t be able to answer every message, but we promise to acknowledge as many as we can.

A POSTHUMOUS HONOR FOR GWEN IFILL

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Watch the video in the player above.

By Cybele Mayes-Osterman, @CybeleMO ([link removed])
Associate Editorial Producer

The late PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill was posthumously awarded ([link removed]) the Dunnigan-Payne Prize for Lifetime Career Achievement at the White House Correspondents Association's dinner ([link removed]) on Saturday.

“She was among the very best,” President Joe Biden said of Ifill, who died in late 2016 after a battle with cancer. “She moderated my first debate for vice president ([link removed]) and was a trusted voice for millions of Americans. Gwen understood that the louder the noise, the more it’s on all of us to cut through the noise to the truth. The truth matters.”

CBS News correspondent Bill Plante was also posthumously honored with the award.

In his remarks ([link removed]) , Biden stressed the importance of press freedom, calling for the release of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter recently detained in Russia, among other members of the press deemed wrongful detainees.

Biden said he and his administration want “to send a message to the country and, quite frankly, to the world: The free press is a pillar — maybe the pillar — of a free society, not the enemy,” he said.

#POLITICSTRIVIA
By Cybele Mayes-Osterman, @CybeleMO ([link removed])
Associate Editorial Producer

Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin ([link removed]) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee became the latest Democrats to announce they will not seek reelection, opening up two races to replace them in 2024.

Inslee ([link removed]) , who has held his seat for over a decade, won his last election in 2020 by more than 13 points ([link removed]) after an unsuccessful bid for the presidency.

With 58 consecutive years in service, Cardin is one of the longest-serving officials ([link removed]) in U.S. history. He won his first election for a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1966, as a 22-year-old law school student.

Our question: Which member of Congress holds the record for longest consecutive service?

Send your answers to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.

Last week, we asked: Before Tucker Carlson entered journalism, which federal agency denied the future cable TV host’s application?

The answer: The CIA ([link removed]) . According to the Columbia Journalism Review, Tucker’s father once advised him, "You should consider journalism. They’ll take anybody."

Congratulations to our winners: Dan Leatherman and Richard Smyka!

Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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