It seems like the White House may have some clarifying to do about just what came out of this week’s first meeting between President Biden and Speaker McCarthy. The statement from the White House seemed pretty clear. They’re ready, eager to negotiate budget issues separate from the debt ceiling, which has to be passed without conditions. This I think has always been the actual and proper position and the one I noted back on Monday was worth reiterating.

I’m not sure the George Santos stories keep getting worse. But they do get weirder, more bizarre.

As we learned way back at the beginning of the Santos saga, he remains a wanted man in Brazil for check fraud he committed back in 2008. After he became an international celebrity in December, Brazilian authorities decided to reinitiate the case which had stalled when they couldn’t locate him. After the case was reopened, Santos hired a Brazilian lawyer to represent him in the revived case. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, since it’s George Santos, that he managed to find a lawyer who’s a convicted murderer. In fact, he’s a convicted contract killer.

JUST IN: Leaked Audio And Staff Dispute Show Chaos Inside George Santos’ Office 

Great new George Santos story coming soon from our team.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss Donald Trump’s chances in 2024 and the latest on Republicans’ flirtation with debt default.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

Our Kate Riga was able to confirm and get additional evidence of this chat first reported by Punchbowl. This was from last night, just after McCarthy’s meeting with President Biden.

There now appear to be multiple federal investigations of George Santos. This is in addition to a number of investigations in New York state. The one we learned about today is based on the truly hideous story in which Santos used his sham charity to raise $3,000 for life-saving surgery for a disabled vet’s service dog and then pocketed the money and let the dog die.

You can read the story here, if you haven’t already. It’s almost cartoonish in its horribleness.

A reader pointed out to me that in this video, in which Santos is interviewed by ABC reporter Will Steakin, Santos appears to be wearing an AR-15 lapel pin. He was being asked about news that the FBI is now investigating him allegedly stealing $3,000 meant to save the life of a dying dog.

I will preface this by saying that it appears the issue has been resolved BUT for at least a few of the last 24 hours, Democrats held a supermajority on the subcommittee that Jim Jordan created to, essentially, find out what dirt the DOJ has on him.

That’s a bit reductive but not untrue. Here’s what happened:

To many it seems premature to be thinking concretely about these things or planning them. But that’s wrong. The most logical and least destructive path out of the GOP radicals’ debt-ceiling hostage taking is for Democrats to temporarily ally with a group of House Republicans to force a vote on a clean debt ceiling bill through a discharge petition.

A discharge petition is a parliamentary tool by which a majority of members signs a petition which then forces a bill to be brought to the floor for a vote.