there s now a little optimism on a debt ceiling deal following yesterday s meeting at it white house even though president biden is cutting short an overseas trip. we ll have the latest on those negotiations. and also ahead ron desantis goes after donald trump on the issue of abortion. we ll look at how it could impact the 2024 presidential race. good morning and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, may 17th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. moving in today with the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations, president biden met with congressional leaders at the white house yesterday, and while both sides say that some progress has been made, no deal has yet been reached. both biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy named top negotiators to take part in talks and continue daily. and while democrats continue to insist that they will not negotiate over the debt ceiling, they are reportedly in talks about spending cuts working on a parallel track. the
I have to admit, i never knew this existed but how cute. And the really exciting thing is the winner could become the next speaker of the house. Im just kidding. Thank you so much for joining us today. The lead with jake tapper starts right now. Folks, i have warned you before, cranking your base up too much will blow out your speaker. The lead starts right now. Republicans need a new leader and they need that person quick. The government runs out of money again next month. So, who should become the next House Speaker . And what deal will he make with those eight House Republicans who toppled mccarthy. Plus, petty, petty, petty politics. First nancy pelosi, and then steny hoyer. Both kicked out of their Capitol Office space. We have brandnew cnn reporting about who was really behind this decision. And the cnn exclusive, 10 million in legal bills for hunter biden and an exhausted efforts to find more funds. Where is a shady foreign billionaire when you really need them . Welcome to the
to the seriousness of the matter. cutting short his trip to asia. we talked about earlier in the show, still going to g7 in japan. you re a veteran of these white house trips. you and i have been on a lot of them together. this is still something that s tough for the white house to swallow. it is. if you ve been watching the diplomat, you understand how much kind of hours and weeks and months of preparation go into whether or not to visit, why to visit, what s going to happen when you visit. a trip to australia, papa new guinea, all is about u.s. asserting its leadership in the asia pacific region and countering china. look, when you re president, you have to take care of what s home first. biden knows that as well as anyone. he has been involved in american politics for half a century. he had to pull the plug on the rest of the trip, but really sets them back agenda wise. they keep trying to make this pacific push and keep getting
be. still uphill, but if the senate and the house changes the dynamic for the next two years. agenda-wise and investigation-wise. the president at 36 or 37%, that is a recipe for a catastrophe for the republican party. those numbers don t lie. hurricane florence lurking off the east coast, but we heard little from crisis communication. the commander in chief.
how bad this is, agenda-wise? look, there is an understanding this is not going well. i think there was a little bit of happy talk yesterday, but more like it could have been worse. yes, it could have been worse but it was a train wreck for them. you had the fbi director all but accusing the president of obstruction of justice. now the president has come out today and accuses the former fbi director of lying under oath. none of this is advantages health care or taxes or any of that stuff. it s going to become hard and harder for republicans to stick with president trump. one more point on credible. trump is saying that flynn conversation didn t happen. almost no one else is saying that. that s not going to work as coherent message if they are not even backing him up on what factually occurred. shannon, coming off the point that it was infrastructure week what is the planned decision