to, them because they have such good chemistry and stuff, why don t you go sit with them, and i m like, yeah that s great, if it, acadia call you. [laughter] ali. need to blame a r]johnson the republicans in nethe house, because we re still in d.c. because we didn t know government shutdown. that situation. that s how we re gonna do this. when you all are in new york, you noticing? i get up early for this. i want to be on the show with you guys. good to tsee you. have yourself gua good day, and we ll see you tomorrow morning. velshi starts now. by, ali. good morning. a saturday, march the 2nd. amal you ll see in another universe, i would be telling you right now about how we are just two days away from the start of the momentous first criminal trial against a former president. instead, that trial seems like it t.may not happen this year, and if the former president returns ifto the white house, i may not happen at. all major new developments thise week hav
welcome back to the weekend, folks. we re here, and house speaker mike johnson is proving he is actually really good at one thing. kicking that can down the road. congress now has another week to avoid a partial government shutdown. but none of this is normal, and we cannot say that enough. if congress was actually functioning like it should, this would have been a done deal back in september. so, joining us have to discuss this and all other things happening with the government s transportation secretary pete buttigieg. secretary buttigieg, welcome to the program. you are still in washington, d.c.. your colleagues on capitol hill, most of them, have gone home. there s a chance that we re gonna be here this weekend, figuring out if they can continue to fund the government. they kick the can down the road. they bought themselves about a week. can you just give us a sense form your vantage point of what is at stake with the government operating in this way, with congressional
joe biden and kevin mccarthy have still not reached a deal that would break the stalemate over the debt limit. tonight, they did meet one-on-one in the oval office hours after the treasury secretary janet yellen issued a another stark warning. yellen says it is quote, highly likely the treasury will no longer be able to satisfy all of the governments obligations if there is no resolution by june 1st. meaning, we cannot pay our bills, even though they was some agreement, kevin mccarthy says the sides are going to keep talking. i think the productive part was who was in the room, narrowing what we re talking about, we re not talking over each other we re not saying, oh let s bring something new into the discussion, let s not oval raising taxes that s been off for a long time. we literally talked about where we are having disagreements and ideas, so to me that is productive, not progress but productive. so we re asking the staff to get back to run through those ideas to see if
Progressive yes not everything we want, but we got a lot out of this. it s not going to be taxes, it s going to have to be something. else and we should note that if they close the carried interest loophole, that would not count as raising taxes, and so, it would satisfy kevin mccarthy s agreement that he was not willing to do, yet poof! somehow this big private equity donors always get their. way ali new topic, tim scott. you write as announcement in south carolina. senator john was there. he endorsed him, and i want to share what he told you. i hope that when it s all said and done there is a big lane for a candidate like tim scott, who i think represents a really positive alternative. as a party, we have to turn that page and start appealing to different constituencies, with a message that is hopeful, and i think he brings all of that. obviously the people they were tim scott super fans, what did they tell you? well, one of the things i ask senator thune, after that, was
That a deal is on the table. biden knows he has to do something. and it is just a matter and it is theater. i mean, we are in the middle, we re towards the end of the second, we shall of the third act to go, they are not going to cut the sink till the very end. they re going to take it right to the edge of the cliff as it almost always does, but that is the way that these negotiations work, and that is how i expect it to turn out. ali, what are you hearing from capitol hill? do you feel like the deal is close? i think that the deal will be closed when they get closer to the deadline. i mean, that has the way congress has always worked. and it s why i think there are, although some republicans casting doubt that june 1st may not actually be the day, the fact that universe has remained consistently the day that senator yellen has laid out, does mean that everyone is working with the same date in mind, and that is helpful to a group of people who are only -oriented around deadlines.