Sen. Josh Hawley says that if he were Joe Biden he consider simply ignoring the debt limit. “Because I would just be like, ‘Listen, I’m not gonna let us default. So end of story. Y’all will do whatever you want to do.’ But I’m not necessarily giving him that advice. It’s against my interest.”

One other point on Trump/Russia as we put the sad tale of the “Durham Report” to bed.

The Russian government intervened in the 2016 presidential election to assist Donald Trump. The Trump campaign was repeatedly informed of this assistance, welcomed it, asked for more of it and took numerous affirmative steps to profit from the assistance. While we can never know with certainty, given the closeness of the election there is every reason to believe that that assistance provided Trump with the margin of victory to become President. The fruits of that subversion campaign dominated much of the final months of the election.

Given the narrow bounds of the subsequent investigation, there is almost certainly much more we still don’t know about the cooperation between the two sides. But in any normal universe the proven facts alone would have fatally discredited Trump’s presidency and led to his forced resignation or removal from office.

This doesn’t really tell us one way or another about the merits of what Joe Biden is currently doing or even what he’s doing — negotiating or not. But it’s a key part of this debt ceiling hostage drama that gets way too little attention: Kevin McCarthy isn’t able to negotiate on behalf of the people who run the GOP caucus, namely the House Freedom Caucus. Let’s say Joe Biden negotiates a deal with Kevin McCarthy. That will almost certainly lead to a follow-on stand off in which Freedom Caucus members make further demands which McCarthy has to accede to. I could play this out in 20 different ways. But you get the idea. It also matters since there’s not really time for that further drama before you hit the final cliff. McCarthy is not really operating as the leader of the House but rather the stalking horse of the House Freedom Caucus.

TPM Reader MM doesn’t think people see what’s coming …

I’m not sure, after reading 9 reader responses, that people are fully aware of the consequences of a debt default, or even avoiding default by issuing bonds to fight over in court later, issuing console bonds, minting the coin or prioritizing payments.

DeSantis campaign sends Ron to Iowa with brief to seem like a normal person.

From TPM Reader SB …

How do you explain Biden’s actions? why the heel turn, and why now? He had to know republicans wouldn’t back down. He knew he was amping up his supporters who think it’s past time someone told the legislative terrorists to make our day. He was putting some drag on the markets. He was undoubtedly making some republicans quite nervous. (He was undoubtedly making some democrats nervous too.) Why do all of that for, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing?

From TPM Reader JR …

Great post, as always. I ended up reading this back-to-back with articles like this Bloomberg piece, in which House Progressives are vowing to block any deal that negatively impacts things like SNAP.

As I soak all this in, I find myself returning to the same (unfortunate and maddening) conclusion: This was always how it was going to go for the Dems.

From TPM Reader JS …

You’re probably right that they’ve decided to give up something. An interesting question would be why. But I would point out that they have pretty much completely failed to solidify that this isn’t a “both sides do it” situation and all the normie stuff you read just wants everyone to make a deal.

From TPM Reader JE …

Once again, I agree with your analysis on a negotiation being a negotiation, but from my reading of Biden‘s comments, there’s a real threading of a needle. Any of the potential “workarounds” such as minting a platinum coin, the 14th amendment, or consort bonds all have serious drawbacks and the economy will take a huge hit. There’s no pain-free way around this.