PBS News Hour

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy were back at the negotiating table today in an effort to do a deal on raising the nation's debt ceiling.

The meeting came after President Biden cut short his trip to Asia to focus on the debt limit talks here at home.

After the meeting, McCarthy said the two sides made progress.

I felt we had a productive discussion.

We don't have an agreement yet, but I did feel the discussion was productive in areas that we have differences of opinion.

So the problem is not revenue, the problem is spending.

So if you want to know where our differences have been, it's always been the same place.

Following all of this are White House correspondent Laura Barrn-Lpez and congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins.

So, Laura, what's the word from the White House with this meeting wrapping up with no agreement and time running out to do a deal?

Geoff, essentially it's a little bit of the same when the White House entered this meeting, which is, again, they feel as though it was productive.

They are optimistic about being able to reach an ultimate deal.

But there are still some sticking points around spending caps, how long those would be, as well as Republican efforts to cut food assistance programs now coming out of this meeting, the fact that there was no substantial movement in terms of the specifics.

The president could very well face more pressure, which he has from progressives to use the 14th Amendment.

There's this workaround that the White House that President Biden has said he potentially has the authority to use this clause in there that says the US debt should not ever be questioned.

And he thinks he has the authority, but he doesn't think he has the time to use it Geoff.

And Lisa, where are Republicans on this?

It's striking that everything that the House speaker said to reporters at the White House after this meeting, he was basically saying to reporters on the Hill before the meeting in terms of the talks so far, being productive.

You know, this is almost like a campaign season.

Kevin McCarthy has a stump speech on his negotiations that he keeps repeating.

Productive, optimistic, though those words are good signs from the speaker of the House as well.

And I did hear a couple of new things.

One, the speaker said that he and the president expect to talk every day from this point out.

You would hope so with the deadline coming soon.

But he also complimented the negotiators from the White House in a way you rarely hear when these kinds of talks come down to this moment.

He said these are the best, most professional negotiators.

Most respectful that he had ever worked with.

And if there is hope, it is in that kind of respect between the two sides here.

However, as Laura and you are saying, there are big differences here and now McCarthy and the president are going to send their staff to try and keep talking tonight, tomorrow to figure out if they can make the difference in these gaps.

It's going to be hard.

Laura, as we've been reporting, a default would have extreme catastrophic consequences on the U.S. economy.

You've been looking at the polling.

What do Americans make of this potential threat?

We have some new polling, Geoff.

A new PBS NewsHour NPR Marist poll that is going to be released tomorrow.

And we found that when we asked how should the debt ceiling negotiations advance, 52% of the public said that there should first be an increase in the debt ceiling, followed separately by a discussion about spending cuts.

And 42% said that there should that the debt ceiling increase should only happen with spending cuts attached.

We also asked if the government default, who is to blame?

43% said they would blame President Biden.

45% said they would blame Republicans in Congress.

Now, the president recently addressed this, Geoff, and he said that everyone would be to blame, although he did in particular single out some extreme Republicans in the House saying that he thinks they are potentially pushing the country towards a default so that way he won't be reelected.

Lisa, remind us of the timing and any potential backup plans here.

Laura was talking about potentially invoking the 14th Amendment.

President Biden has said that that's untested and might be unpractical.

What are the other potential alternatives if they're already correct?

The timing here is a real math problem.

As you're saying, ten days until June 1st, which is when the government could run out of money to pay for its bills.

It takes two days.

Speaker McCarthy estimates to write a bill once they get a deal, then another three days for the House to read it and debate it and vote on it.

That leaves just five days left, and that's about as much time as the Senate usually needs.

The Senate can move a lot faster if it wants to.

That's difficult, as you know.

Other options, there's something called a discharge petition that takes even more time.

It's in the works.

It's not there yet.

But a short term funding bill may be something we talk about more.

Speaker McCarthy says he doesn't want one right now.

Lisa Desjardins and Laura Barrn-Lpez, our thanks to you both.