When doktor posse jani at Dana farmer. Cancer institute showed how each year far mutation and lung cancer patients switches on cancer growth. It led to an empty approved drug that was the first brought application of precision medicine in lung cancer. This each year, far inhibitor has led the way for other active, targeted lung cancer therapies find out more about Dena harbour momentum at work at Dana farmer, dot. Org slash stories. from the new york times, I'm sabrina tavern dc- and this is the daily. The finish that I thought, a productive meeting with the congressional leadership about the path forward, sure america does not fall in a high They showed out this week, president, by and the leaders of congress met face to face in an attempt to avoid theo,

Defaulting on its debt for the first time in history, it is not dead, beat nation, we pay our bill and avoiding the fault is a do duty of the united states today, my colleague Jim dangerously on how close the country now is to that financial calamity and the radical step Biden might take to prevent it. Its friday may twelve. so Jim, the federal government, as we all know, is in this rather frantic process of trying to avoid the nation

Voting on its debts- and we talk to the show last week about how that poses this- really big challenge for the speaker of the house, Kevin Mccarthy. But of course it also poses a really big challenge for president Biden. So walk me through the debt limit dilemma from his point of view. What is this look like if your binding, so on tuesday, president Biden welcomes speaker, mccarthy and others congressional leaders from both parties, the white house, and for all intents and purposes this really was a negotiation. The timing of these talks has everything to do with. What's going on right now, with the debt limit and from the president's perspective what's happening here is that republicans are home

The nation hostage their basically saying we might let the government default on debt catastrophically for for the economy, unless President Biden agrees to a whole bunch of cuts in federal spending. The president has no intention of agreeing to the wide scope of cuts. Republicans kinds of talked about he's really opposed to the idea that he should have to negotiate at all over what he basically views as congresses responsibility to raise the limit to pay the bills congress has already authorized, got it from republicans perspective binds being unreasonable. They have passed a bill that raises the debt limit and though it comes with strings that he doesn't like attached to it. That should be reasonable sit down and say: okay, what can we agree on here right? So, all that in mind the parties come to the white house on tuesday afternoon. They sit down and there's real urgency behind the talks, because we are barreling toward what

known as the estate. It's the time when the treasury department is going to run out of its ability to pay all of the governments bills on time and treasury. If those have recently estimated that date could hit as soon as june first, which is really suit, yet it's basically no time at all, but so far in their talks, the president and republicans congress have made almost no progress in finding common ground there sort of stock in a game of chicken with each one kind of pointing the finger at the other end, expecting that they will blink first, given the other side's demands to avoid a default and it's a really perilous position for the economy and the country right now, right, okay, so, basically up until this point, things have been kind of at a stalemate between the two sides. What can Biden do about it while the first is that he could put an end to that game of chicken and attempt to negotiate a deal with speaker, Mccarthy, that would be exciting

to both the speaker and of the president, and probably what that would mean is some sort of agreement built around some kind of limits on federal discretionary spending over a period of a few years. There's a reason in particular that white house official talk about spending limits as apposite anchor of a deal and its because they don't expect to increase spending anyway, so long as republicans control the house. So if they just effective We agreed to put into writing, but they expect to happen already, while the present my go for that right. in addition to that, though, the president signalled on tuesday that he might be willing to cut some spending in a that republicans have been pushing for for a while, specifically, he would be open to cancelling

some of the money that was included in the stimulus bill he signed in twenty twenty one, but hasn't been spent. Yet now republicans estimate that cancellation would save fifty to seventy billion dollars, but that's a real. These small slice of their total proposal to raise the debt limiting cut spending which actually sums up to nearly five trillion dollars. Okay, so in this option Biden, woods a look all agree to a more moderate set of spending cuts in return, speaker, mccarthy, you'll go ahead and raise the debt limit, no strings attached. That's, certainly one of the things that a lot of folks around Washington expect could be an outcome of these discussions. But it's not clear that would work. Speaker, Mccarthy would have to sell that compromise to republicans in the house and

There are a lot of them who have really been agitating for much much deeper cuts than any kind of deal with. The president. Would entail and who could very likely refused to vote for it right so big potential pitfalls to that one. So, what's the next option than well, if the present decides that it's just not fruitful to talk to the speaker, he could try to go around Kevin Mccarthy. He could try to cut a deal with just enough republican votes to join with Democrats in the house in the senate to raise the debt limit. That would require doing something to bring probably five republicans in the house on board and close to ten republicans in the senate. They'd have to probably use this legislative maneuver called a discharge petition a boy. Would she have it's a way to bring a bill to the floor

for a vote in the house, even if the speaker of the house does not want it they're so theoretically, they could do this arcane process to bring up a bill that they have a small number of republicans agreeing on to pass a delicate increase with mostly democratic boats. It's really tricky. it's a lot of time. Legislatively it takes a lot of little capital- and there is no indication that this sort of discussions we're going on with republicans or that there is even an appetite among republicans to make this happen, got it. So these options don't look particularly easy, either get republicans to agree to weigh less than what they're asking for or convince enough republicans to turn their back on their party. Well yet none of the Legislative options are perfect. It's true and it is what's giving a lot of heartburn to people who watch congress,

now? Is that they're having a hard time seeing how it would work? But there is another option that the administration is weighing: it's actually something that they ve been talking about for months. That is still on able today and would be I wouldn't call it a nuclear option, but a really big, bold risk that the president could take to try to end this debt limit fight by himself in. What's that option le president could decide to ignore congress and ignore the debt limit. He could follow a theory of the constitution. That is effectively constitutional challenge to the existence of a debt limit itself, its rooted in the fourteenth amendment to the constitution, which effectively says the government has to pay its debts. They can't just not pay, but the fourteenth amendment like the fourteenth amendment yeah that working at the moment

I mean that was the amendment that was passed after the civil war and it was about slavery. It writes out. So what does it have to do with the nation's debt? Okay, it's wonky, but bear with me here: okay, As you just said, the fourteenth amendment is adopted right after the civil war the time when lawmakers are setting out the terms under which the states that had succeeded to join the confederacy, would be allowed to come back into the union. It does a lot of stuff, it granted citizenship to former slaves, for example, but it also includes a section section. Four of your score that says the validity of the public debt of the united states shall not be questioned and there's a sort of Corky reason why they did that it was about the sort of the fears of southern states regaining poet no power in a new congress, you know these guys it's borrowed money to finance the union army. The civil war- and there was a worry that if this

burns editors and representatives controlled congress, they could just decide out we're not going to pay the people we borrowed money from for a war. You know against our own state so interesting, so they wanted to make sure that in the constitution it said nope you have to pay all the debts. Got it, so they were coming back in having political representation in congress in the idea was no, you have to accept and take on all of the debts you can't back out of them. That's exactly so. Under that theory, a president, like president Biden, could decide that the constitution trumps, the law. and that in this case it requires the government to keep issuing new debt to pay off its old debts, no matter what the debt limits. So this clause has been around for a long time right, the nineteenth century. Why haven't other presidents who face this problem, used it

it has been around, and this is not the first time has come up. It was raised in like a law review article at the end of the nineties, but it really kind of entered the conversation from obscurity in two thousand and eleven after seven plus muzzle scathing political attacks, countless meetings between the president, the law makers. There is still no that ceiling. Deal bottom when president obama had that debt ceiling fight with republicans in the house. Some top tier democrats have said the fourteenth amendment that might work for us. Maybe at the time there was a lot of about carrying people. Talk a little bit more about the feasibility of this fourteenth amendment option. Even former present couldn't said that he would have invoke the amendment if he were still prosperity, but there is a strong argument for partners argument buttons, sighed, the obama white house. I have talked to my lawyers, they don't be. They do not.

They are not persuaded that that is a winning argument they never really seriously. Consider this. In Why didn't they consider it seriously? What first off it's not clear cut in the constitution? The constitution also said that taxing and spending resides with congress. So it's a theory and it's a theory that has some scholarship behind it. But it's not a cotton dry? Everyone agrees on the interpretation of the constitution, but beyond that there or other considerations driving the obama team when they did. Consider this and that are giving divide and team laws now and the biggest one is this, even though president work to believe that this is constitutionally. The right thing to do and take this leap. That leap would.

some really profound consequences will be right back. This is Kevin rules, I'm am attack columnist at the new york times. My job is not just to do glorified tech support. It's a tough, to the people who are actually making the decisions that govern our digital lives. Like interviewing the ceo of youtube about how they're trying to deal with their extremism problem or talking to mark Zuckerberg about free speech on the internet, I'm trying to talk to the people, make the rules that we all live by and the people on the other side who are affected by those rules- and this is what all of my colleagues than your tens are doing, trying to distil of this complexity into something that people can understand

drivers support. All of us were so please join us and would subscribed to the new york times. You can do that at an why times that come slash subscribe, Ok, so Jim walk me through what the consequences would be if the by administration actually decides to go. For this thing, the fourteenth amendment strategy well, first of winter, no exam global, would happen, but I dont think it would be that the president would step outside the white house one day and run out scream into the void. I invoke the fourteenth amendment, I mean an unlikely possible good television. I don't think so, but as the june first deadline approaches, the government runs out of the ability to pay its bills. So the president, essentially say: ok, I'm gonna, call the charter secretary and tell her that we are invoking the fourteenth amendment, and so we need to have another.

And of raising money to pay our debts like JANET Yellin, the treasure secretary can just do that. Well, her department holds what's called a treasury. Auction happens, the time and its when the government goes out and sells new bonds to lenders who are essentially giving the government money now in exchange for the guy, giving them some more money later on down the road, so Biden calling up Yellin says just do another treasury auction. We do them every week. Do one this week like that sounds okay right, like where's the problem there. While the problem is in the auction itself, and it's specifically with the buyers of the government bonds they for good reason might not be so sure that this debt,

they would be borrowing is actually going to pay off down the road. If there's a constitutional question about whether the government will actually be allowed to issue these bonds will then maybe you're buying something that's worthless. so those buyers in the treasury option are going to do what buyers in options do all the time when there, buying a risky or asset which is there to pay less money for it. In what effectively does that mean effectively what it means- is that the government is going to have to pay a much higher interest rate to borrow money in the short term. It's kind of like taking out a payday loan. with a really high rate, but would the financial fall out here be worse than if the government just defaulted on its debt gather. Probably not I mean that is a big part of the consideration. Here I mean this would be chaos and actual default on the debt could be crippling chaos if the debt limit is hit and we truly breach the

state the markets are gonna, go nuts, no matter what Biden does and not just treasury markets, but in this case, what's going to happen, is that governments go to at least keep that honey flowing into the economy, which will be less of a disruption than if it just stopped paying people and the trade off is it's gonna, be paying a really high interest rate to borrow that money to keep flowing. So these are the financial perils, but I mean there must be some pretty serious legal consequences here too. Right I mean agnes, essentially circumventing comics. Absolutely I mean it is basically a guarantee that, someone would challenges in court? If Biden did it and without look like well, there's a real chance that some record somewhere in the country would decide that. In fact, the government can't do this that the constitution does not say what binds saying and that the constitution vests power for taxing in spending

only with congress and the vital industries would appeal, and it would very likely end up at the united states supreme court, because you know that is how these big fight seem to end up these right right. So ok gets a supreme court. Then what well trim court could decide any number of things. On the one hand, they could decide that the plaintive is correct, that the government can issue, any more debt, and it might say that debt is in valid that was just issued in the treasury auction or that the government has to give the buyers their money back. So that would then cause the default that the administration been trying to avoid all the government spending. We come to a halt. Pretty dire economic situation and presumably what those bond buyers were worried about right right. Exactly, on the other hand, the supreme court to side with biden- and that could happen and actually a couple of different ways for one. A could decide that no one has standing to sue to channel

which Biden's move, because you need to show harm in order to be a plaintive in a case like this, and the court could decide that will no one is harmed by the government. Continued she debt, and the second thing you could do of course has just agree with this: degradation of the constitution? It could say the president is correct. The fourteen dammit over overrides the law, and the government must keep paying its debts in either of those scenarios, it would effectively be agreeing with Biden that the debt, It is unconstitutional and basically strike it down, so in that scenario I mean if the administration did move forward with this constitutional strategy and it worked as you're describing there. It would mean the end of these debt limit fights altogether right, which would seem to be a bit of a political earthquake. It would be it would be a political earthquake. It's certainly something that

democrats and progressives who have pushed this interpretation of the constitution for a long time would love to see, they would call it an end to the republican hostage taking over the debt limit short term. However, it would be a really big mess for the operations of this congress and this government under this president described that mess well very bluntly put. It would make republicans really angry and they could retaliate in a number of ways. One of the easiest ways they could retaliate is by deciding hey the money that funds all of the government services that people know and use, runs out at the end of september and we're just not going to pass a bill appropriately, any more money until Biden. You know reverses course on the debt limit.

we, even if JANET Yellin is out there are raising money having these dead auctions. There are ways that congress can still throw some pretty serious hurdles in the way of the government's finances. Yeah congress has to appropriate the money to run. Basic government operations. Now everything from the military did the education department to the national parks and they could just decide in protest not to do that for awhile or indefinitely until the president comes to the table and meets their demands. So even if Biden does this mean I wanna goes ok or at the very least it doesn't blow up completely it still pretty politically risky for him yeah. This is a political consideration that has been discussed inside the administration and that risk extend well beyond congress. I mean

it's very fair to say that we have no idea what public opinion would be about this. It's certainly not something that's been debated in the open. It hasn't been aired in campaign commercials. The president is just starting to run for re election and he'd be taking a risk here, hoping that voters would reward him for acting decisively to keep the nation from defaulting, but worrying that voters might get em. worry about it and often when voters are angry, they blame the president, so that's a risk for him as well. Sir Jim big picture here. How likely is it that this fourteenth. Strategy actually gets used by the bye demonstration having given these risks ruling out bolt. Something really interesting on. This happened on tuesday. After his meeting with cuba the leaders. Prestige is never the phones. Did it never will present Biden get

statement, you and I'll take your questions and then took questions from reporters. As you said, you're certainly not, and he was asked if he would consider invoking the fourteenth amendment will the crusher. I have been considering the fourteenth amendment. He said He was looking at it, but the problem is you had me litigate. He meant The legal reasons why it might not be a great idea, but he explicitly tapped it on the table, I have been discussions about whether or not the fourteenth amendment can be revoked because that was like. I think that important. I think it certainly makes it much more likely that it could happen. Then people thought weeks ago when the president is refusing to rule it out in public in the midst of these talks with republicans interest. Now, with all that said, I think there's still a decent chance that, whether it through negotiation or a steering contest, or whatever, the president and congress and with an agreement to raise the debt limit before

We had the estate that could mean kicking the can down the road just a little bit a month or two to give them more time to talk about the debt limit and there's always this possibility that financial markets will freak out right before a possible default and that that could spur congress to act, but, regardless of whether Biden actually pulls the trigger on this fourteenth amendment idea, isn't the fact that it's become such a point of conversation, kind of meaningful in and of itself like. We ve got into this point that this option is on the table. We. What does that tell us about where we are right now, as a country as a political system? I actually in our view this week with someone who has been around washington for a long time and was can to be on background about this crisis and what he said was, I think, very resident to this question, which was no one trust each other in Washington like they used to write

Inside the Biden administration, they do not trust that republicans are actually going to raise the debt limit in time. In the same way that the Obama administration trusted that and republicans dont trust. That Biden won't circumvent them. So it's almost self reinforcing Lack of trust reflects a divided electorate and angry electorate people turning against each other. country, and I think it has made even routine things like raising a debt limit, not at all routine and the president that sort of had enough of this. He led the negotiations and twenty alive, to resolve the debt limit, stand off, and this time he's just done with it, he doesn't want to be negotiating over the debt limit, does not see it as appropriate. He sees it as hostage taking and so for all those reasons. This does not feel the same

Those previous fights to me in that raises the possibility that it could end differently Jim. Thank you. Thank you. So much President Biden, speaker, mccarthy and other congressional leaders were scheduled to meet at the white house again this afternoon to continue their negotiations over the debt limit, but on Thursday The white house announced that that meeting had been postponed, we'll be right back. Here's what you should know today on thursday morning. in prosecutors, said that they would bring criminal charges against Daniel, petty the twenty four. You're old marine veteran who choked and killed a homeless man on the subway district attorney's office said it would charge penny with sex. the green manslaughter in the killing

jordan neely on an f train on may first penny is expected to appear in manhattan, criminal court on friday and food and drug administration announced that it is formally ended, a long standing policy of not accepting blood donations from gay, bisexual men. Instead, the cs, finalizing new guidance that will require all blood donors to fill out a questionnaire about their recent sexual activity. The change effectively end a federal policy that had long been considered discriminatory. today's episode was produced by robs it cold and Alex stroke. It was by a need. A better job contain this original music by dan, pow unwillingly, stop and was engineered by Chris. Would our theme, it goes by Jim Rutenberg and then landsberg of wonderly,

that's it for the daily. I'm sorry Having listened to you on Monday The.