I wasn’t able to watch last night’s CNN town hall. I was helping my son prepare for an AP exam. I plan to watch it later today. But I’ve already heard enough reviews and seen enough clips to see that it conforms with what we knew of the Chris Licht model. Licht, as you may know, got the CNN assignment when CNN ended up with its latest corporate overload Warner Bros. Discovery. There’s been a lot of debate about just what Licht’s brief was. But it seems to have been some mix of the ideological fancies of its new owners and a general desire to make it “less liberal.”

For many of us, the idea that CNN is or ever was “liberal” is an absurd enough proposition to get the conversation about Licht’s goals off to a pretty poor start. But the topic clarifies itself when you see the question through the lens a corporation uses to understand questions like this. We don’t need to have an abstract conversation about what constitutes “liberal” in this context. It’s much simpler than that. You’ll know it’s not “liberal” when Trump and Republicans stop attacking it.

I’ve seen various accounts of what was discussed or set forth as positions in yesterday’s meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders. So I don’t feel like I know what was discussed. But after the meeting President Biden said that while he’s been “considering the 14th Amendment” approach he’s wary because of the length of time the issue would take to litigate. He seemed to suggest that process would be too lengthy to resolve the current standoff.

I guess it’s good that he’s considering the 14th. But this answer is not only wrong and self-defeating, it suggests the White House simply isn’t in shape for this fight. Indeed, if this is where we’re at it suggests an attitude toward the courts and the broader political context which seems hopelessly stuck in the past.

Let’s walk through this.

From TPM Reader JB …

I think that the suggestion that the government pays some bills but not all of them is setting up a lawsuit more than the actual plan. SCOTUS made clear that the President does not have the choice to execute only parts of the spending of the US as commissioned by Congress in  Clinton v. City of New York.

From TPM Reader CB …

Josh, I know I’ve written to you previously about this issue, but this Yellen statement is astounding. If this is their plan, it’s a disastrous plan.

It will make enemies of those who get the short end of the stick, and ingrates of the others. The Republicans, however, will love the plan, because it leaves Biden twisting in the wind, while Republicans cackle and criticize and say to the American people, “Biden is doing this to you. All he has to do is sign on to the House bill and everyone gets paid.”

Let me follow up a bit on this post from last night about Janet Yellen’s CNBC interview. I don’t read her as ruling out “consol bonds” or the 14th amendment or various other approaches. I see her communicating two things: one overarching and one immediate and specific.

Let’s deal with the first of those first.

As we’ve hurtled closer to the cliff, there’s been a rising chorus among those who are fiercely opposed to any negotiation with parliamentary terrorists. That chorus is anxiously asking this question: what is your plan when they call your bluff? What steps are you planning once they start shooting the hostages?

We’ve had this running question for months about just what happens if the U.S. Treasury runs out of funds to meet all the government’s spending obligations. To be clear, those include ordinary spending as well as servicing of the principal of and interest on the U.S. debt. Secretary Yellen went on CNBC this afternoon and I think we got the first piece of an answer. It was a long interview, mostly about other aspects of the economy. But she discussed the debt ceiling standoff at the beginning. Here’s the key passage.

Ross Douthat makes several decent points in this column on 2016 déjà vu before coming around to what seems to be his real point: Trump’s getting a leg up because “the press” actually wants him back. “[A]t some half-conscious level the mainstream press really wants the Trump return. It wants to enjoy the Trump Show’s ratings; it wants the G.O.P. defined by Trumpism while it defines itself as democracy’s defender.”

To be fair to Douthat, he does say leading up to those lines that if Trump is renominated it’s ultimately on GOP primary voters. Fair enough. But I really don’t buy this. Yesterday, HuffPost’s S.V. Date wrote that the U.S. press has failed its responsibilities by not putting front and center in all coverage of the man the reality of Jan. 6. This is true. Every general press account of Trump should begin with a descriptor something like “Donald Trump, the former president who staged an unsuccessful coup after being defeated in the 2020 election …”

But even this failure isn’t the same as wanting him back. I simply don’t think this is true even for the silliest and most conventional of national political reporters.

A small detail in the context of the latest mass shooting, this time in Allen, Texas. Eight people dead, including children. (The gunman was also shot to death by a police officer who happened to be at the mall for reasons unrelated to the shooting.) That detail is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, just the worst kind of racist degenerate who somehow has managed to become the de facto leader of House Republicans in the new Congress.

This morning Greene went on Twitter to note that the shooter “appears Hispanic” and had what she decided “looks like a gang tattoo on his hand.” And then added “Title 42 ends on Thursday and CBP says 700,000+ migrants are going to rush the border.”

Over the last day or so, the D.C. insider sheets have had some interesting details about the GOP’s positioning and doubts about the debt-limit hostage-taking standoff. Senate Republicans especially are pushing to punt on the crisis for 30 days or so. Publicly, they’re siding with McCarthy and only a few have vaguely floated the idea. But for a lot of non-die-hards there’s clearly a mood of Can we take a time out? or Can we get a little more time to plan our hostage-crisis so you get blamed?

The White House obviously has little incentive to help Republicans out with their self-created crisis planning, though OMB Director Shalanda Young didn’t categorically rule it out.

But other Republicans have come up with a different way of extending the deadline: simply say the deadline is later. Two nights ago, Axios reported that many Republicans simply don’t believe the government will run out of money in early June.

“Nobody believes her. I don’t believe her,” said Sen. Kennedy, referring to Janet Yellen’s June estimate.

Many GOP lawmakers think they have until July or August.

Did you see the latest Clarence Thomas bombshell? To head off any misunderstanding, let me state that I know with a perfect certainty that Thomas will never be removed from the Court. And while it is theoretically possible he could resign, the odds of that happening are roughly equivalent of finding sentient life on Mars. But that doesn’t take any of the punch away from the news that Thomas had a child (a grandnephew for whom the Thomases became legal guardians) at private school and Harlan Crow picked up the tab for the tuition.

I want to take a moment to chart the trajectory of these revelations.