If we didn’t have enough high-stakes drama on our plates we might be all over this. But I wanted to make sure it was on your radar. It started yesterday when notorious reprobate Texas AG Ken Paxton put out a statement calling on the Texas Speaker of the House to resign over a video clip from the House floor which appeared to many to show him drunk. (His speech was at least slurred at one point. Here’s a breakdown of the video.)

As many of you know Paxton is both hard right and ludicrous and has seemingly for years been under investigation, indictment, sued by various people including his staff … and yet somehow still manages to remain permanently in office.

That was where things stood as of yesterday when I first heard about this.

Let me note something technical but important. While the White House has not yet shown any inclination to argue that the President has legal or constitutional authority to disregard the debt limit law, a union, National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), has. Indeed, they’re arguing in federal court that he is constitutionally obligated to do so. (On the legal and constitutional merits, I think there’s little question they’re right.) This case has been underway for a while. David Dayen, at the Prospect, notes the DOJ has now responded to the union’s request for a preliminary injunction.

There’s a really stunning report out from the Journal last night. Corporate bonds at some of America’s top-rated companies are now trading at a yield discount to Treasuries. This isn’t quite the same as investors thinking U.S. corporate debt is safer over time. It’s focused on the what happens over the next few months rather than where you put money over time. But it’s still a stunning development, cutting at the very architecture of the world financial system and the United States’ position as its gravitational center.

To put it in layman’s terms, if you need a place to put money over the course of this summer and you need it to be as safe as possible, investors are deciding Microsoft’s corporate bonds are more attractive than bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury.

It’s a clarifying perspective on the impact of GOP extremism and nihilism on the nation’s finances and global power.

Two dudes who have advanced their careers, in recent years, by saying and doing things to rile people up as they curate their cult of personality points are teaming up to make an announcement that everyone already had on their 2023 bingo card.

You’ve got Elon Musk in one corner — a man who will say just about anything to elevate his brand as the free speech Messiah. And then you’ve got Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the other — Trump’s long-anticipated 2024 rival who has spent the last year using his Republican-dominated state legislature to pass outrageous, so-called “anti-woke” legislation packaged to appeal to the furthest-right MAGA voters and cushion his 2024 bid.

Here’s one thing to keep an eye on as we moved toward ~ June 1st. Over the last few days there’s been a growing jitteriness on Wall Street and in the D.C. stakeholding communities. Like, shit, this really might happen. I don’t see any panic yet. But the complacent assumption that obviously it’s going to get worked out is starting the fray or at least come under some strain.

What appears to have gone on over the last four or five days is the White House just keeps saying no to new or expanded GOP demands. Of course, they’ve already agreed to or tentatively signaled their willingness to agree to quite a lot. So there’s no hard line or Michael Corleone-style “my offer is nothing.” But they do seem to have come to a line. At least for now.

For the last two or three months we’ve had this on-going spectacle of major media continuing to portray Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the arch-rival and potential slayer of ex-President Trump, even after it’s become increasingly clear he has really no chance at all of winning the nomination. In fairness to DeSantis, it’s unlikely that anyone stands a chance, unless the judicial system or mortality remove Trump from the stage. But it’s only with DeSantis that you have the yawning gap between perception and reality. Everyone knows Pence and Scott aren’t happening.

Now we’re seeing the first signs of the Bigs catching on.

As he stood before one of the friendliest crowds imaginable this weekend, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was still hesitant to spend much time touting the passage of a strict six-week abortion ban in Florida, a law that he only briefly described as “a landmark piece of legislation for this state.”

DeSantis made a big show of signing his state’s 15-week ban into law last year. He televised the bill’s signing and dragged in a bunch of Republican state lawmakers, children holding pro-life signs and a packed crowd to applaud his signature. But when he signed his six-week ban into law in April, he did it privately. His office marked the occasion by putting out a press release in the middle of the night. When he gave a speech at Liberty University the next day, he didn’t even bring it up.

Even though this won’t come as new news to many of you, the following is still a clarifying prism. A negotiation is usually two sides haggling to get things they want. Leverage is often unequal. Sometimes one side isn’t “getting” anything but rather just trying to give up as little as possible. But in this negotiation, Republicans are getting various policy priorities and Democrats are “getting” Republican agreement not to create a global financial crisis. That’s extortion, not negotiation. A government can’t operate in any consistent or sustainable way when policy deliverables go to the party willing to credibly threaten the most damage to the country itself.

It looks like we’re in for a down-to-the-wire drama over the next ten days to two weeks as we come down to the still-fuzzy default deadline. We’re going to have a lot of pinging back and forth, drama and access journalism headlines over the next several days. We’ll try to keep you aware of those things while keeping the focus on the fact that this is a manufactured crisis and not truly a negotiation (in the sense of each side bargaining to get things).

There’s been a series of stops and starts in recent days, with House Republicans repeatedly leaving the talks and then coming back. The key driver is the Freedom Caucus. The negotiators were near some mix of clawed-back COVID funds, “permitting reform,” work requirements and budget caps. All bad, but still very different from the Freedom Caucus-dictated budget outline passed several weeks ago. As a deal got closer, the Freedom Caucus yanked McCarthy back and said they wanted their whole bill.

Today President Biden seems to be increasingly teasing 14th Amendment authority, after headlines yesterday suggesting he was telling congressional progressives to drop the idea. I’ve basically stopped trying to interpret what’s happening here. But one thing is clear: even if President Biden has no intention of doing this or resorting to other extraordinary measures, it is insane to rule it out in advance publicly. At a minimum he needs Republicans to think he might take an action that would leave them with no ransom at all. Otherwise you’re simply negotiating against yourself.