you re live in the cnn newsroom. i m jim acosta in washington. we re at a crucial moment in the high-stakes debt ceiling talks. we re waiting for details on a phone call that just wrapped up in the last hour between president biden and house speaker kevin mccarthy. negotiations are down to one final sticking point, safety net for social programs. leaders may have as little as eight days to prevent the u.s. from defaulting on its debt. many experts predict economic disaster if that happens. manu raju is up on capitol hill. manu, i was hoping since you were there in front of the cameras for us today that that meant i think this is probably our strongest indicator, that you were on capitol hill for us. president and kevin mccarthy spoke. at this point if the speaker were to come out and touk alk t reporters, that would be a good sign. you tell us. reporter: that s right, jim. the speaker said today he would be the one to make the announcement that there is a deal. well, he
impeachment illegal, unethical and unjust. it is ironic. he has been corrupt for a long time. this is the recognition of that by people in his own party. and you re right, in the texas senate that s going to be a higher threshold for sure. it is two-thirds of those who are present. think about it the way you think about the indictments and the impeachments of folks either connected to former president trump or president trump himself when he was impeached in washington, and it works similar to that here in texas. the house makes an indictment in the form of an impeach. and the senate has the trial. i find it interesting that basically the presiding officer of the senate, not necessarily the judge in this case, but the guy who will hold the gavel, is lieutenant governor dan patrick. he is the kind of republican idealogically and the kind of person who has the support of former president trump like ken paxton does, but i might have
i m fascinated what this does say about mitt romney and where he is. i don t think there s anyone who is a more forceful kind of leader of the republican idealogically, where they want to take the country than paul ryan. in a lot of ways, the biggest risk for mitt romney is that paul ryan, in a sense, it s kind of paul ryan s program that mitt romney is running on. whether or not there s a little bit of an overshadowing potential there, despite the fact this is a young sort of relatively unknown person, i thought this was fascinating. it does say a lot about what mitt romney needs but where the republican party wants to go and whether or not in a lot of ways he s a passenger rather than a driver. we have another hour to go. don t go away. none of you go away. at the top of the hour, what the latest polls say about paul ryan. and will he hurt or help mitt romney in key states like florida?