After months of insisting that the White House would not negotiate over debt-ceiling hostage taking, the White House now appears to be doing just that. Reports from numerous news organizations tell us that the White House is now looking for a deal to avoid a calamitous debt default. Yesterday President Biden told reporters, “I really think there’s a desire on their part, as well as ours, to reach an agreement, and I think we’ll be able to do it.” Of course, we haven’t seen any deal or its terms. So we can’t be certain we know what’s coming on that front. But in case there was any uncertainty on the process, the President provided clarity (emphasis added). “I’ve learned a long time ago, and you know as well as I do: It never is good to characterize a negotiation in the middle of a negotiation.” In other words, it makes sense to call this a “negotiation” because the President says it’s a negotiation. That’s good enough for me.

A cardinal rule of politics is remembering that you never get everything you want. But we should also be clear whether what we’re getting is what we said we wanted. This clearly isn’t it. Perhaps this was inevitable. But they’re negotiating over raising the debt ceiling even as they say maybe, somehow, that they’re not, even as they say they are?

For a sane, tempered guided tour of the day’s news, I got you covered each weekday morning:

Definitely take time this morning to read Hunter Walker’s big exclusive which we published last night. Hunter discovered that a leading member of neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes “Groyper” movement — who operates under a series of pseudonyms — actually works as a staffer on Capitol Hill. Fuentes calls Wade Searle, a staffer working in Rep. Paul Gosar’s office, “one of our strongest soldiers.” If you’re not familiar with it, Fuentes movement is explicitly racist and anti-Semitic and is probably best seen as the modern day, digital equivalent of the late 20th century Aryan Nation neo-Nazi groups.

In recent years, Gosar has flirted with the group and its leader — alternatively expressing agreement with him and then blaming misunderstandings or scheduling snafus when he comes under scrutiny for it. But as Hunter shows, the movement members are actually working in Gosar’s office — a fact that is understandably viewed as a coup and a fact of great value within the movement itself.

Let me say a few words about the piece. While the reporting is Hunter’s, a piece of this scale, complexity and sensitivity is a group effort. It’s also the product of many hours of work by Executive Editor David Kurtz and Managing Editor John Light. Your membership and support for TPM is what makes exclusives like these possible. So thank you for making this possible.

More to come.