Starts right now. Out front with chris hay toni. Not one republican should vote for this deal do not vote. For this bill. The best deal is no deal. Republicans floundering on the Debt Ceiling Deal, as biden plays it cool. Why doesnt biden say what a good deal it is . Why would biden be saying what a good deal it is before think thats going to help me get it passed . No. Tonight, how calling the bluff of the Hostage Takers was the key to saving the country from economic catastrophe. Democrats are committed to making sure that we do our part and avoiding default. Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, will join me live tonight. Then, have all members voted . The radical Republican Attorney general of texas, impeached by his own party. Plus, as the Special Counsel closes in, new worries about a snitch in team trump. And hes out of jail, unrepentant, and selling perch. The qanon shaman returns home as a hero. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes. At this hour, we are watching the first big test for the first big deal between the house maga caucus, led by Kevin Mccarthy and a democratic president , joe biden. The House Rules Committee just concluded a nearly fourhour hearing, moving ahead with the bill to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default just days ahead of the deadline, when the federal government is expected to run out of cash to pay its bills. Committee is expected to keep working through the evening, towards sending that bill to a full house vote tomorrow. The Debt Ceiling Deal, which was struck over the weekend, after a very long and torturous process, would also cap spending for the next two years. And there are a few small conservative policy winds, if you can call them that, including rescinding 28 Billion Dollars in unspent covid relief funds, eliminating 1. 4 billion in irs funding, and restarting federal Student Loan Payments after a lengthy pause that began at the start of the pandemic. Republicans have also succeeded in Slapping Work Requirements for benefits, including food stamps, on some more folks that currently have access to those programs. Substantively, if not with democrats would have crafted themselves and ive got to say, if youre one of those people that have start repaying your loan early or find yourself kicked off of food stamps, it stinks. But it is also nowhere near as bad as it couldve been. Indeed, as bad as i feared just a week ago for President Biden, for the democratic party, but most importantly, for the country. It is a considerably better outcome on the merits than the last time we had this exact same fight back in 2011, which i also covered. With the disastrous Budget Control Act and the sequester. And because of all that, because its nowhere near as bad as 12 years ago, conservatives in the farright freedom caucus, our whaling. This deal fails, feels completely. Not one republican should vote for this deal. It is a bad deal. This deal is absolutely one of the biggest abominations since ive been in washington, d. C. What did republicans get . I cant answer that. Mccarthy, biden proposed or even slow down deficit spending. This bill is unamerican, it defies conservatism. Tomorrows Bill Hands Biden blank check. This bill keeps all of joe bidens policy, all of joe bidens spending, intact. No republicans should vote to validate and own bidens agenda. And that is what this bill does. Now, its notable to me, their complaints tend in the mean to be about the fact that republicans got outplayed, which i think shows how conservatives tend to see everything, through the lens of, are you owning the lives or are the lives owning you . Theres a deeper question at play there, though. Weve got this radicalized, i would say, largely nihilistic House Republican caucus, the majority of whom, let us never forget, in the last congress, voted for Donald Trumps coup. At the very beginning of this congress, they extracted punishing concessions from Kevin Mccarthy in the most humiliating election for speaker in over a century. The deal that we have before us is not the deal you wouldve guessed that group would make. The deal is basically a, quote, unquote, normal, bipartisan budgetary deal. Then the question becomes, how did we get to that outcome . And more crucially, what does it tell us about this brand of Maggot Conservatism at this very moment . To answer that, i think youve got to look back at what has changed since the last time we do this in 2011. When we were in the midst of the same fight. At that time, republicans were working with kind of two disparate groups in the party. They had the base, which was this reactionary, rage filled base that above all else did not want barack obama as our president. Then there were the elected politicians, who sort of fought leaders in the republican party, conservative movement, the classic ronald reagan, paul ryan vision. They wanted to cut the social safety net, they wanted privatized medicare, they wanted to impose austerity, all while singing the praises of the free market. And republicans, in that moment in 2011, were able to actually narrate those two factions quite effectively. The boots on the ground, the people, or the base. And the people steering them were paul ryan. And it resulted in a disastrous deal that came out of that that ceiling hostage crisis. Throughout the country for years, and heres, and heres, it was terrible. So now a dozen years later, the Republican Leadership continues to pretend they care about things like spending and the deficit, but heres the thing. Even that pretense has grown so threadbare in. They can barely convince themselves. Remember what happened with president joe bidens first major piece of legislation, the American Rescue plan . Amid a key debate and vote on this anonymous fiscal intervention, in the midst of a reeling economy and ongoing pandemic, this is what the right was focused on at the time. Lets talk about dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. Doctors. Heres dr. Six doctor dr. Seuss. Dr. Six dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss. The focus has remained the same more or less in this fight. Its not on dr. Seuss this time. But the focus is on the Kind Of Culture War chum that keeps the sort of Conservative Outrage Machine going. President ial candidate, ron desantis, governor of florida, when he announces hes running for Office Office platitudes about how the right, you know, got owned by the lives in the steel and hes against it. But his real concern, the thing that he focuses on, his vision for what he brings to the white house, its all about the war on woke. Well, prior to this deal, kelly, our country was careening towards bankruptcy and after this deal, our country will still be careening towards bankruptcy. Everyone knows if im the nominee, i will beat biden and i will serve two terms, and i will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology on the dustbin of history. So, the careening towards bankruptcy, again, that sort of standard conservative affair, its got no bite. My contention is the real bite is in the destroy leftism in this country. Here is the thing. The untie or conservative world has essentially retreated from, even abandoned, basic questions about the nuts and bolts of the political economy. The important things, like what should the government spend on, whats its role in the lives of its citizens, what programs should support, who should be eligible for them, how much and who should be tax . There is no coherent vision of any of that anymore. There is no even pretense they have won. And so, in the end, they took the Debt Ceiling Hostage and then they didnt even know what they wanted as ransom. They could not even muster up enough of a pretense that they cared what the ransom was. Now, dont get me wrong. Thats not to say they dont care about anything, they do. Just look at republican projects in the states they control, where they are attempting to make the lives of transgender children and adults utterly miserable, forcing women to continue pregnancies, restricting voting mechanisms, in an effort to thwart Popular Democratic initiatives. All the while, continuing to cut taxes from the wealthiest. They know what to do with power when they really believe in something. What we have seen a total ideological exhaustion on basic Political Economics from the entire post reagan right, culminating with donald trump. And we are likely going to continue to see that on display. The Debt Ceiling Deal moves to the rules committee, likely onto a full vote in the coming days. We expect some members will defect from speaker mccarthy, but it looks like there wont be enough to change anything in his speakership will remain likely unchallenged. Because while they went through with a procedurally radical move, right . Essentially threatening to take the faith and credit of the entire union hostage, it turned out in the and, they didnt really care about the outcome. Joined now by House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of new york. And congressman, first, let me just ask you your sort of Top Line Understanding of the deal. What do you think of it . Well, good evening, chris, great to be with you. President biden accomplished three very important objectives. First, to make sure that we avoided a devastating and catastrophic default and stop the extreme maga republicans from crashing the economy, triggering a jobkilling recession which would have hurt millions and millions of everyday americans. The second thing that was accomplished here is to make sure that the debt ceiling was suspended for two years. Taking it into the early part of 2025 and removing their ability for the balance of this congress to take the country down another Hostage Taking Exercise. Third, President Biden was able to protect some really important democratic priorities, protect social security, protect medicare, protect medicaid, protect veterans, protect the country from the types of extreme right wing cuts that the republicans were demanding in the bill that they passed in april, the default on america act. 22 cuts they were proposing across the board. And so, i think on balance, in this circumstance, what he was dealing with was an extreme, on a reasonable group of people who were determined to bring about a bad result for the American People that President Biden did an incredibly good job in a very difficult situation. Lets talk about the sort of hostage taking aspect of this because there is a sort of critique, the substance of the bill, then theres the critiques of essentially incentivizing this again. So, we saw it in 2011. They did it again, its now pushed through to 2025, right . The next time they will have to raise the debt ceiling, lets say you have a President Biden and Republican Congress again, not a crazy idea, right . Its like, okay, we are going to go through this every time. Has it changed anyones thinking, among your house colleagues, that you have to get rid of this thing once and for all . Whether its to do it when he was democratic leader and essentially come together and just get rid of its statutorily, whether the white house has to look into saying, look, the constitution doesnt allow us not to pay our debts. Where are you on that . Because that seems, to me, still the kind of Unfinished Business of this deal. Yes, i think very good point, chris. Its in all of the above approach. First thing that we have to do is get through this moment, make sure the country pays our bills, avoid a default, and we can continue to build an economy that works for everyday americans, building upon the great record of accomplishment that came out of the last congress. But we also have to find our way out of a nibbling extreme right wing individuals in the congress to use the debt ceiling down the road to take us down this Hostage Taking Exercise and try to extract a painful ransom. And so, we need to look at the options, legislatively, i think that would be the best solution. That is in front of us. And to see where the opportunities are, moving forward. Mcconnell had agreed on a proposal initially, several years ago, that would change the formula related to the debt ceiling and effectively give the administration through the secretary of treasury, the ability and presumption to be able to do this without, you know, congress being able to weigh in at the front and. So, i think we need to look at that because its a proposal that sent it, republicans have at least supported in the past. And then the administration came to explore, you know, some of the options that may be available to it outside of the context of the crisis that we are in right now. Thats interesting. I had forgotten, the Mcconnell Proposal was basically it devolves to it being raised and if you want to stop it from being raised, then you have to act passed legislation, as opposed to the way that we have now, which is, as you said, perfectly sets up this sort of hostage negotiation. In terms of the process, how involved . I mean, who cut this deal and how involved were you . Well, President Biden and his team had the laboring or, but they were in close communication with Leader Schumer and with myself, and house democrats, every step of the way, and i greatly appreciate that. House democrats were unified. We were unified in getting behind the Discharge Petition to make it clear that there was an option here, if we couldnt find acceptable resolution. We were unified in all voting against the House Republican extreme default on america act, making it clear that there was no room, no leverage, in terms of trying to peel off democrats that we all stood strongly behind President Biden and his team, in avoiding default and arriving in a resolution that protected our values and that was acceptable to democrats in the house and in the senate. I want to play you, when the deal was coming together, congressman matt gaetz. I think late last week, when the sort of contours were being public, sort of offered a prediction about how he thought this would go, and i thought it looks like its fairly astute. Im curious to get your reaction. Take a listen. I think that it will pass with about 80 to a democrats votes and between 140 and 160 republican votes. I think the coalition opposed to this will be, like, the squad and the freedom caucus, and it will rock it through the senate after it passes the house, and i think that theres no serious threat to mccarthys speakership. Basically, a pass on a bipartisan basis. I guess the question for you is, are you whipping votes for this . Is this a vote that you are going to go around and really get democrats to vote yes on . Well, we are continuing the process of engaging with the administration and making sure that they are presenting information, which they have been doing, in a very clear and comprehensive way. Two members, as it relates to the contours, the four corners of the resolution, and we will be hearing from them tomorrow in person at a caucus meeting. But i do expect that democrats will make sure that we dont default, and that disagreement that is presented is able to pass out of the house, through the senate, and gets to President Bidens desk. But it is important for House Republicans to produce at least 150 votes. This is an agreement that they, themselves, negotiated. And they should be able to produce the votes necessary, consistent with what representative gaetz said, in order to help get the thing over the finish line. Thats interesting because those two parts of the answers are somewhat intentional with them. Youre saying, look, if the leadership in the white house, the white house, we generally trust, thinks its a good deal, theyre explaining why they think its a good deal, why a member should vote. But then the second part is, kevin, buddy, you negotiated this. This was your doing. We cant give you, youve got to do the heavy lifting on these votes. Well, hes got to do his part to avoid a default. But i do think that, for the reasons that i outlined, in the protection of those democratic values, social security, medicare, medicaid, veterans, you know, vulnerable individuals, the homeless, people who are aging out of foster care, these are all communities and issues that we fight hard for, as democrats. That President Biden protected. But at the same time, if we are going to have a bipartisan resolution to this, that means that in addition to house democrats, helping to avoid it evolved, thats exactly what House Republicans should do as well. All right, congressman Hakeem Jeffries, i appreciate you taking some time with us tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you, chris. Coming up, how President Bidens struck the Debt Ceiling Deal by not really saying a word about