extreme maga republican effort to default on our debt, crash the economy. i m worried about the consequences of us not coming to terms and raising the debt ceiling. at this point, it s economic terrorism. my communications to them are, stand firm. there s no reason not to. stand firm. you have a white house that is not serious. republicans want to drive us over the cliff of default. it s idiotic for anybody to consider anything other than what we had. we will ride it out. neil: does that sound like progress? we ll see. both sides far apart as lawmakers race to cut a deal we re told a week away. this as fitch, the big ratings agency warns that a credit down grade could be in the cards and maybe soon regardless of how this works out. welcome, everybody. i m neil cavuto. so much to get to. let s get to it with chad pergram on capitol hill on where things stand right now. hi, chad. good afternoon. the move by fitch and the ratings arm of morning start caught the att
neil: the presidential race is on. say this about standing apart from the crowd when it come to tim scott, no criticism from the former president, donald trump. saying of the south carolina senator, good luck to tim scott and entering the race. its rapidly loading up with lots of people and tim is a big step up from ron desantis who is totally unelectable. he s not said a bad word at all about senator tim scott. good to have you. thanks for having me back. its been too long. neil: yes. congratulations. you got a lot of financial interest. $20 million for someone who is being dismissed and the poll numbers look weak. jimmy carter was in your
if biden s numbers are where trump s numbers were, people would be more concerned. for an incumbent president up running a third time, his numbers are weak. ron desantis is the one with critical mass and can take him on. trump s numbers should be higher given that he s a former president and he s running a third time. the fact that he can t get his numbers over 55% shows there s huge problems with his candidacy. people are looking somewhere else and i think they ll land on ron desantis and you ll see conservatives coalesce around ron desantis now that he s in this race. neil: you think it would be a mistake for the governor to keep pushing his electability when polls pitted against the president both men are relatively tight races? and some, the former president leads the current president. look, i think what the
only poll that matters is what happens on election day. look at ron desantis electoral history. he eeked out a small win in 2018. after the people of florida got to know him for four years, they re-elected him by almost a 20-point margin. a 19% improvement. neil, that swing voters, persuadable voters, center left voters. the first republican statewide candidate to win miami-dade county in over a generation. that s the kind of result we need. donald trump didn t flip new voters in 2020 on a net basis from 2016. he was flat or slightly down. ron desantis grew his constituency, grew his voter ways and persuaded voters in the middle. that s the kind of conservative that we need that can defeat joe biden in november 2024. robert mueller can beat joe biden. donald trump can t. we shall see about that. what kind of reaction did you get from president trump when you said look, i m going with
solutions to the american people, that we can all embrace, common sense leads to common grounds. we can get it done, one american family working together. neil: we are going to have a lot of time, senator. much has been made of the age of not only donald trump, of course, but more importantly, these days, about president biden, whether you can be too old, some talked about a competency test, that really depends on the party, i get it, how do you feel about that? is there a point you can be too old to run for president? well, the problem with our current president has nothing to do with his age. i m not going to give any way out. he has been incompetent in his job. we should measure his performance by the performance, not by his age. not give him any wiggle room. do your job, joe biden, until it is no longer your job in november of 2024, that job is going away. we are going to have a republican in office. going to be there by november 2024, and i look forward to being that candidate