On the Debt Ceiling, the White House Is Doing What It Said It Wouldn't Do

Joe Weisenthal (0:11)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the OBLOT Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:16)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:18)

Tracy, stupidest law in the world. The debt ceiling, we're still here.

Tracy Alloway (0:22)

I was gonna say, you'll have to narrow that one down, but I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, the debt ceiling.

I am really struggling with this one. I'm struggling to get into it, because I feel like we've been here before, and we kind of know how it's going to play out. But of course, the wild card this time around is just, I guess, the lengths to which a certain portion of a certain party is willing to go and using this as political leverage.

Joe Weisenthal (0:50)

Yeah, well, I think what you said sort of captures the spirit perfectly. We know how this plays out, and it probably will play out as you have in your head, except that the potential in the scenario where it doesn't play out like that is very bad, people think.

Tracy Alloway (1:08)

Yes.

Joe Weisenthal (1:08)

And so you have this situation where you're like, oh, everything, we all know how it works out. It's all theater, they resolve it. And that's probably true.

And yet the possibility that somehow it doesn't get worked out, it would be unprecedented and potentially very calamitous.

Tracy Alloway (1:24)

Well, the other thing that's happened this time around, and again, I am sort of struggling to get excited about this particular debt ceiling episode, but the other thing that's happened is that the White House started out this whole thing saying that it wasn't going to negotiate on the debt ceiling. And yet here we are, we're recording this on May 23rd.

It seems like they're negotiating.

Joe Weisenthal (1:46)

They're absolutely negotiating. And it made sense for the White House to say that. And the reason I say that is because Biden was there in 2011 when Obama negotiated the debt ceiling deal with the House Republicans and sort of saw firsthand how that sort of derailed Obama's presidency. And no, Biden had a front row seat to that. And so you figure like from Biden's perspective, it's like, well, I'm not gonna go down that road again. I saw how this derailed the White House the last time I was in the White House.

And yet here we are. And I would say at a minimum, the White House has failed to stick by that and failed to sort of void the same path that Obama went down.

Tracy Alloway (2:28)

What if saying you're not gonna negotiate was in itself a negotiation tactic?

Joe Weisenthal (2:33)

It may have been. It may have been, but it seems to have failed. And so, right? Like that's sort of the thing. It's like, well, that was clearly a posture.

Tracy Alloway (2:41)

I don't think the intent was that in late May of this year, we would be talking about the president potentially invoking the 14th Amendment to deal with this issue. That couldn't have been the game plan. And can I just say one more thing about this episode?

I really resent having to turn this into a constitutional law podcast. I never wanted that for my career, and yet here we are.

Joe Weisenthal (3:08)

And yet here we are.

Exactly right. And again, you sort of said it. Like you said, the president, the White House might have to invoke the 14th Amendment or might, except that the White House has already said that's not a great option. It doesn't really want to do that option. And so if there are these various off ramps, like if there are these various alternatives to just sort of raising the debt ceiling via Congress, like it's been done dozens of times in the past, the White House has like trashed every one of those options.

Tracy Alloway (3:37)

No, this is the problem with talking specifically about the off ramps is you kind of tell everyone what your least preferred option is and all of them are bad options, it seems like for the White House. And so there's no, like they have really pointed to, this is the thing that would be a massive win for us.

Joe Weisenthal (3:54)

Right, they just point to the things that would be a loss for them. Should we get started?

Tracy Alloway (3:59)

Let's do it.

Joe Weisenthal (4:00)

So how did the White House get into a position in which it expressly said it would not? How is the White House negotiating over the debt ceiling when it expressly said for months and months that there would be no negotiation?