congress fails to act and the u.s. defaults on its debt will be bad. it s something that looks more possible by the day. the clock is ticking. speaker kevin mccarthy says he wants a deal by this weekend. that it s the only way to give both houses of congress enough time to actually mark up and pass anything on the debt ceiling. but president biden is leaving town tomorrow heading for the g-7 in japan. what punch bowl called a damned if he does, if he doesn t situation for biden with the stakes incredibly high. so with both of those things in mind, the clock and the travel, what is being said inside the white house right now? speaker mccarthy is there meeting with president biden for the third time to avoid a default. look at the background in a second. don t worry. what s on the table and what s even possible. does an acceptable compromise exist? one that actually passes not just the split congress, but this split congress. joining me now, nbc news white house correspondent,
game? let s bring in michael pillsbury, senior fellow at hudson institute and author of book the 100-year their mono. marathon. michael, thanks very much, indeed, for joining us. thanks. gerry: a lot of sound and tour fury around speaker pelosi s itinerary. did this visit achieve anything? well, it achieved a lot, but a lot depends on what nancy pelosi does when she gets home to washington. she refused to join a series of republican initiatives including a task force to deal with china. she s kind of cold shoulderedded any cooperation across a broad range of issues. so if she changes that approach when she gets back, then trip will have had a huge impact probably on her. as you know, she was quite the china hawk back in the 90s, demonstrating in beijing on behalf of tiananmen students who were killed, doing a whole series of things to hurt china badly. she then shifted over to a more moderate view, and if she shifts back now to how she was in the 1990s, that will b