the senate does not have. so is this going to get done today, tomorrow, or certainly before june 5th? reporter: we re hoping before june 5. senators are trying to haggle if they can do this today or if they can do this tomorrow. there is a real desire here to not have to work the weekend, and it s probably a combination of that desire, some jet fumes, the need to get out of town, and then also an agreement on amendments that s likely to get us there. one of the things that s holding this up is people like senator lindsey graham who are unhappy about the way they see defense spending capped in the current bill. he s upset with his own party for negotiating this. here s what he had to say about this. watch. i blame myself for not being more involved and more active because in my wildest dreams, i never believed that the republican party would take the biden budget that they ve attacked for a year and celebrate it as fully funding. reporter: and look, graham is not the onl
the president out in farm country today pushing the same, tired talking points. blaming pollutant and those greedy corporations. bite and to take responsibility as we learn the surge in prices is stuck at a 40 year high. g.o.p. lawmakers calling out the president for his inaction. joe biden will blame anyone but himself for this. he s blamed chicken farmers, everyone else under the sun. president biden is flailing around, swinging blindly, hoping something will land. the truth is that the biden administration just keeps kicking its own after 14 months, nothing is built. nothingness back, and nothing is better. he was supposed to give his ideas on inflation yesterday. what were his ideas? it s everybody else s fault but his spirit biden gets blamed for record inflation. finding one group willing to defend. guess who? a democrat in office, the deficit goes down, the economy flashes, and the republican comes in and destroys it all. and they want the democrats to co
expected. but when it came down to the basic premises of what we were running on in the last election and part of what we ll run on in the next election, they were protected in this process. more importantly, american families are protected from a default, and those who are struggling in our economy were not hurt as badly as some of the republicans wish. you mentioned food stamps and wanting to work. we ended up making an agreement there, a concession, and extending the age for people who want food stamps and had to work from 49 to 54. but we added more categories. veterans, homeless people, folks coming off of foster care, so in the end, there were more people eligible for s.n.a.p. benefits, although the work requirement was extended a few years, a compromise. before i let you go, i ll see how much of a betting man you are, if you were one, would you say the chances of something getting voted on tonight, 40/60, 60/40, where would you put the
you, put you on the spot. your view, is ryan almost certainly out? i don t know almost certainly out, but candidly, it s not a bad thing for him to contemplate. and i would argue for him to do. there s a bunch of reasons. i ll go through them quickly. number one, there may not be a speakership for him to leave, jim. this is a 50/50, 40/60 proposition in the house. you don t to want look like you re running out of town. number two, you have to do the best you can with the circumstances you have. getting tax reform, and i know there s some back and forth on this. let s assume they get it. that s a big accomplishment for the republican party. there s a reason we remember the reagan tax cut, the bush tax cut. having that and being a shep ard of that, i don t know this things are going to get a lot better for paul ryan, i don t see entitlement reform happening, and getting the deficit under control does not seem to be a priority of this president.
and yet, that s the question, right? because it all seems like he is playing these 40/60 politics. meaning 40% of the public is with him. 60% is against him. uh-huh. which shouldn t work in a majority democracy and yet it is somehow working. think about this, chris. his first goal is to try to control the republicans as much as he can. and so what he is doing with that 40%, which still remains a super majority of republicans is to control the party, control his chance going forward, try to discipline or jettison republicans who don t agree with him by threatening to get them primary opponents or threatening to support the most radical trump loyalists in a race so he s trying to maintain that republican core. i guess the question sheer and i ve read your book and