laura: the clock ticks on debt ceiling talks and that controversial trump town hall. >> instead of taking default of the table, speaker mccarthy is taking default hostage.. >> i don't think there's enough progress for the leaders to get back together. laura: with the clock ticking on the debt ceiling, the u.s. edges closer to a potential first-ever default, and president biden and congressional leaders hunt the next round of discussions to next week. >> we have a crisis at the border getting worse. laura: the white house under fire is a growing number of migrants arrived at the southern order after a pandemic era deportation policy ends. plus. >> you are a nasty person. laura: in his first town hall of the 2024 election cycle, former president donald trump unleashes

a cascade of lies and insults. next. ♪ >> this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can find one the fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> additional funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation -- committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. sandra and carl delay-magnuson. rose hirschel and andy shreeves. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. laura: good evening and welcome

to washingtonweek. i am laura barrón-lópez. president biden is juggling two challenges that could dominate and define his summer. in washington it is crunch time for the president and congressional leaders to reach an agreement on raising the country's borrowing limit. with less than three weeks to go before the u.s. is expected to run out of money and begin defaulting on debts, a second round of high-stakes talks has been postponed until next week. >> i have not seen a seriousness from the white house, it seems like they want to default more than deal. laura: the announcement comes after a tuesday weeding -- meeting at the white house ended without a breakthrough. >> i told congressional leaders i am prepared to begin a separate discussion about my budget and spending priorities but not under the threat of default. laura: there is another potential crisis looming. at the u.s./mexico border after

the pandemic era deportation policy title 42 expired thursday night. officials are bracing for an influx of migrants seeking asylum. on thursday, the homeland security secretary warned migrants of new restrictions. >> our borders are not open. people who cross our border unlawfully and without a legal basis to remain will be properly processed and removed. laura: but republicans and some democrats are critical of the administration. >> president biden has overseen the worst crisis at our border in our nation's history. with title 42 expiring, you will have a major catastrophe that is a crisis entirely of his own making. laura: joining me to discuss this and more, ron brownstein, and here in the studio, dan balz

. zolan kanno-youngs, and ali vitali. thank you all. the second meeting that was originally set for today between president biden and congressional leaders was delayed to next week. what are you hearing from the white house about why it was delayed? zolan: i think it would be normal if everyone got that news and thought are we ready for even more delays in this negotiation, is this going anywhere? when you talk to white house officials, they are framing this as a positive development. for as much as we want to take that with a grain of salt. they did paint a scenario of if they both came out, kevin mccarthy and biden, after a meeting and pretty much had nothing to say or show in terms of progress or meeting a consensus, how would that shape public perception about whether or not they will make a deal?

just because they are not meeting doesn't mean the white house is not talking to congressional staffers, which is where a lot of these details are going to get figured out. whether that be reaching a consensus on permitting reform, which is a possibility. earlier in the week if this topic was brought up, i might have been talking about the 14th amendment as a possibility for the white house. it doesn't seem when you talk to officials that talks are ongoing and they seem to be looking toward next week just in terms of continuing negotiations. laura: today the nonpartisan congressional budget office said their date is june 1. what are your sources telling you? ali: i think you are right that the white house is trying to say there is a glass half full view of pting this meeting. i know they have been meeting a

few hours a day. we are starting to see some consensus come out of those backdoor meetings around permitting reform, clawing back covid money. those are the things they are finding as points of consensus. what is in pointed -- what is important to note is if we are finding consensus, someone has moved off their initial position. right now the public posture is they want and clean debt ceiling height with a parallel conversati about spending from the white house, and republicans say they are only doing that in tandem. publicly, no one is saying any different. when you think about the progress cominout of these talks, the word i heard from one source is it is notional progress. that's not inspiring but if you are an optimist, i think that she's up --tees up higher

stakes for next week. also, the personal side of these relationships and negotiations are critically important to president biden. the only thing i heard out of last week's meeting is that was very acrimonious. the mood was very tense, there was a lot of back-and-forth between mccarthy and the president. that doesn't sound like a productive atmosphere and it -- atmosphere for negotiating. laura: you are little optimistic. ron, how does president biden's experience when he was vice president handling debt ceiling talks shape what we are seeing now? ron: there is a long history here that shapes how biden is approaching this. in many ways, it has taken him 180 degrees from where he was for in 2011, barack obama agree to negotiations with republicans, then led bypeaker john weiner, over budget matters in the context of the increase in the debt ceiling.

even when obama was in those negotiations, he did not view the debt ceiling increase as something republicans were giving him in return for concessions on the budget. he felt the budget talks had to be balanced internally between spending cuts and tax increases and the debt ceiling in effect was the legislative vehicle they were using, the train they were putting the budget talks on. nonetheless, he was willing to negotiate while the debt ceiling increase was pending and joe biden was at the forefront of the prices -- process. there was a dominant effort through the spring of 2011 and when that hit a dead end, they began backdoor negotiations over a much more ambitious package than we are talking about today, as some of you remember. there were a lot of people in washington talking about a grand bargain to reduce the deficit and they got to the five yard

line and then it fell apart and they were forced at the last minute to scramble together to put together a package largely between biden and mitch mcconnell to avoid default. obama and his team came out of that experience and said never again. they were never going to negotiate the budget with the threat of default over their head. to the point, where in 2013, when republicans tried -- harry reid, the senate majority reader -- majority leader, insisted obama keep ayden out of the talks because he worried biden would be willing to make a deal with mcconnell. for biden to reach this point of wanting to keep these tracks separate, and i do believe if they reach a deal they will find a way for eachide, the fact that biden has taken this hard-line is a reflection of how scarring and tumultuous the 2011

experience was for everyone involved on the white house side. laura: so ney democrats now say these have to be separate, they cannot be tethered together. the debt ceiling has to be passed on its own, clean. sometimes these meetings we saw like this week can actually be beneficial do you think there was movement made this week? dan: i do. when we talked about this a few weeks ago, right after the republicans had passed the budget and debt ceiling increase, it was stark reminder of how far apart the two sides were. i thought the meeting that took place this week was predictable in many ways, which is to say both sides went in with hard positions. they stuck to those positions. but when they finished, they agreed to keep talking. they agreed to have a meeting which we know has been postponed a bit. but the staff started talking and i think that says we are in a different place today than a couple of weeks ago. that doesn't mean it will be

easy. i agree with ron, i think in the end if they are able to reach a deal, each side will be able to claim they got what they wanted in terms of the structuring of it. biden will say these were separate and republicans will say they were tied together. i think one of the other differences this time compared to 2011 is kevin mccarthy is in an even weaker position than john boehner. if they can reach an agreement with the white house, will he be able to sell that to enough of his conference to get through? i would not expect any significant progress next week. i think we are still a ways away. these go right to the deadline and i think we will see that again. laura: we talk a lot, rightfully i think, about dynamics in the republican conference and what mccarthy has to be able to bring

home to his base to get this over the finish line. i think it is striking you see the senate effectively acknowledging that. mcconnell is taking a backseat, happy to let mccarthy take the lead. politically allowing him to take the arrows. also recognizing the realities of who has a tighter gri on their conference right now and who is navigating the most narrow majorities and it is certainly mccarthy. he has such a tough job. ali: mccarthy's life could have been made or difficult by the fact that the former president said why not head toward default? laura: i want to get to immigration and title 42. title 42 just ended, the deportation policy that started under trump, on thursday. but the biden white house is putting in place another trump era deportation policy, asylum policy. what does this new policy do and

how does it affect asylum-seekers? zolan: they are trying to. we will see if it doesn't get challenged in court. right now you have a situation where after two years of internal within the white house, internal debate and infighting over how fast to unwind trump era policies and after a certain reliance on title 42, which did seal the border to many asylum-seekers, this is being lifted and you have another policy very similar to another trump era rule. it says if you are a migrant that did not apply for protection in the country on the way to the border, in guatemala or mexico, and you get to the border and you can't show you applied for protection, you are not eligible for protection in the united states. this was very controversial during the trump administration. the white house says their plan

differentiates by basically expanding a limited narrow pathway for humanitarian parole, it is temporary. how will it impact migrants? i remember being in guatemala and going to the asylum office and seeing four staffers handling hundreds of asylum cases. the state department has said some of these places are dangerous as well. they will face criticism. but it shows you how squeezed the president is politically. laura: the secretary was saying the immigration system is broken over and over again among calling on congress to do something. but the reality is congress is not going to do ything. ali: it's unlikely. you can throw cold congressional water on most things becau we are in a state of divided government right now. that's not to say not -- everyone seems to agree this is a broken system. it is just the views are divergent on how to fix it. on the house i, they passed a border package this week that was in theory one of their

signature policies they wanted to pass on taking the majority but even that required so much could joe ling by leadership -- cajoling by leadership. on the senate side, you have some senators getting some bipartisan backing on both sides of the aisle to basically have an extension of title 42. even that i think would face significant challenges because the senate realities are so different from the house. laura: ron, i want to give you a final thought on immigration. you said the country is facing an immigration paradox. how so? ron: to the point about how comprehensive reform is needed for all of this, we are in a strange situation where we have just lived through the decade that had the second lowest, slowest growth and population in american history, 2010 through 2020. the only decade slower was the depression.

we are all paying a price for that. you see businesses struggling to find enough workers, and in part because of the tight labor market, that's one of the reasons why the fed thing interest rates so high. wage inflation rooted in the tight labor market means everyone in the country is paying a tax for the lack of population growth over the last century. we are now debating how to keep out these throngs of people trying to come to the u.s.. obviously people massing at the border is not the way to solve the problem in our prime age working force but it is paradoxical that we are struggling with keeping people out even as we don't have enough people to fill the jobs and drive the economic growth we need. that is the kind of problem that can only be solved through congressional legislation. don't forget, in 2006 and 2013, first under a republican president and second time under a democrat, i bipartisa

majority in the senate was able to come together on a comprehensive ill that included tough or border security, more pathways for people to work, legal status for people here, undocumented. mitch mcconnell voted for the first one, marco rubio voted for the second. each time the house would not take up the bill. it's hard to imagine we can do any more than manage the wor of this problem without more congressional action than we have seen since the 1990's. laura: we should note that when title 42 ended thursday evening, so far there hasn't been a dramatic surge over the border. we also want to talk about the cnn town hall. cnn courted controversy in fierce debate this week after former president donald trump headlined its latest live primetime town hall. trump's first of the 2024 election cycle. despite the moderator's best efforts to fact check mrtrump in real time, he used questions from her and an audience of

republican new hampshire voters to repeat many of his familiar false claims. some of their exchanges like this one about the 2024 election results, revealed trump's willingness to undermine the nation's election integrity. >> will you accept the results of the election regardless of the outcome? >> fi think it is an honest election, i would be honored to. >> but no commitment? >> if it is an honest election. >> so not committing to accepting the 2024 election results. laura: i think all of us here tonight can agree that no one says we should not cover the former president. but media outlets are reevaluating how to cover the former president. what you think our role, the press plays, and defending democracy? dan: we play an important amendment to hold government to account and government officials

to account. part of that is protecting democratic institutions i think the challenge with president trump, and i think what happened on wednesday night was unfortunate, it was as though we on learned the lessons we felt we had learned from his time in the white house. yes, he is the leading candidate for the republican nomination. that means we have to cover him in some way or another. but i thought event elevated him in ways that were unnecessary, particularly at this point in the cycle. we are in may 2023. i thought cnn gave him more of a platform than they needed to do, and with a format that in essence favors the candidate rather than the moderator, who had a tough job and worked at it throughout the 70 minutes. my own view is we need toe quite restrained in the way we

approach trump's candidacy. we do not treat any event like a big event. we have been successful on that for many of his rallies. we don't cover the rallies in the way we did before. but i think again, what happened wednesday night as a reminder that he is a different kind of candidate than we have ever dealt with before and his anti-democratic views are ones that we have to be aware of, continue to bring to the forefront for people, and not give him undue attention to talk about that. laura: the debate right now among some of our colleagues is -- they are saying we covered trump maybe we don't give him a live ptform or carry his rallies live, as you just said. ali: the live piece i think is th part of the format we are seeing the most criticism. you are right. we've all been to trump rallies, i've been going to them since 2015.

we know what they are. this was a trump rally in a different format with someone prompting him as topics changed. i think also that you had a crowd cheering and laughing along with him made it feel more like a rally. i also think it's important, i couldn't stop thinking about this when i was watching, the fact that one day before he got on that stage, a jury of his peers found him liable for sexual abuse and he went on that stage and mocks that woman. it took me back to 2016 when more than a dozen women made credible sexual harassment or assault allegations against him and he went onstage and said everything from they are not my type, i would not do that, and mocks them. it felt like time was a flat circle in that moment. people have this already baked into the donald trump cake. lawmakers did not feel a lot of pressure to distance theelves from him. some said it made them want to vote for him more, i don't how

that is logical. but this is already in vote ors's -- voter's minds. laura: the former president did make policy news. what stood out? ron: much of what he said was something we come to expect but i think it was jarring and newsworthy that he could not say whetheor not he wanted russia or ukraine to win the war. you ask public officials about that and that's been something they are reacting to. there been questions coming from embers of congress about the future of usaid when it comes to ukraine. we know president biden thus far has done a job of uniting the west in terms of against russia and maintaining support for that aid, that stood out. as well as him dodging questions on abortion as well. laura: you just made my

transition for me. ron, you said the former president's abortion comments were the most significant. why? ron: i don't think it was entirely a dodge. i think he gave a clear indication. he said twice he wasonored to have played a role in ending roe . he kind of did the eye alone can fix it when he said i was able to terminate roe after 50 years of trying. he said that gave the pro-life side the leverage it needs to pass a national law that would satisfy pro-lifers in the end. i think that was about as clear an indication. all he didn't do was not the i were cross the t sing how many seven abortion ban he would sign for it don't the key left a question. that soundbite of saying i was able to terminate roe, he took

credit for ending a constitutional right that 60% of americans wanted to keep in place. if you are in the suburbs of milwaukee or madison or detroit or las vegas or phoenix or atlanta and he is the republican nominee, you are going to see that soundbite endlessly in 2024. he said he would pardon most of the january 6 rioters. he said he would restore the policy of separating kids from their parents at the border. the justification of the trump team is this is an attempt to reach to the middle, to go beyond the conservative news bubble. he said a lot of things that would be challenging in the suburbs they have to win back if he is nominee. laura: dan, final thought? are the democrats making a mistake because they think he is the most beatable candidate? dan: there's a certain logic behind the idea that he is the likeliest of republicans to be the nominee but i also think

they believe he is more beatable perhaps than somebody else, although the others have to prove their worth. i thought coming out of that event, most important thing was to remember he is a different kind of person, a different kind of politician. i agree with ron that he made some statements that could be costly with different kinds of voters. the big question is what is his fitness for office a second time? laura: certainly an abnormal candidate that we are all still learning how to cover. we have to leave it there for now. they cue to my panel for joining us and sharing your reporting. thank you to all of you for joining us as well. don't forget to watch pbs news weekend on saturday for a look at the devastating decline in florida's citrus harvest that is also threatening a way of life. i am laura barrón-lópez. good night from washington.

>> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wiress service to help people do what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> additional funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation -- committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. sandra and carl delay-magnuson. rose hirschel and andy shreeves. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

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