Fmr. Sen. Heitkamp on debt ceiling negotiations: An economic crisis would not be good for Biden

Heidi, instead of what should happen, what do you think is really going to happen today? Do you see cooler heads prevailing? And maybe we do find some middle ground? I think there will be more posturing today and a lot of bluster. But eventually, I think they're going to have to reach a deal. And we're going to have to come to the middle. And the question is, is this something that the Republicans accomplish and the Democrats can accomplish working together? And I think there's no heroes of this story, but the real villains will be, if we can't see people coming together to fashion a result to basically avoid this crisis. Heidi, this poor senator, you're a CNBC contributor, we're colleagues. So I don't know why we can't be on a first-name basis. But you don't expect the president just to once again just keep saying again and again, I won't do anything but a clean raise.

Is that finally going to be something that he softens a little bit? It has to be. Yeah, it's hard to tell. I think Joe Biden is a dealmaker. He likes making deals. I think he realizes that he's not doing as well in the polls as what he would like. He needs to avoid this because an economic crisis in the middle of kind of this early decision-making on the 2024 election would be not very good for him. But I do know that there's hardliners within his party saying, hold the line, hold the line.

Both parties, yeah. So I think left to his own device, he'd probably cut a deal. I think you need to look at what the other caucus members are saying. He's been pretty poll-resistant with a lot of his decisions. I don't know if he doesn't govern by poll, that's for sure. But we did make that point earlier that the political capital, at this point, this might not be the time to really be as intransigent as possible. Yes.

Joe, I think they were betting that McCarthy would not have been able to get something out of the House. I think the posture was, look, we'll see what you have. Now McCarthy's been able to deliver a bargaining position. Then it's up to Biden to respond, I think. You said that last time. I was looking at the notes last time you were on. Show us what you got, Speaker.

And then he finally did. That kind of pulled the rug out from a lot of the argument. Senator Pat Tumis here. Do you guys work together? Heidi, did you guys get along? Yep. We got along great. How are you, Heidi? How are you, Pat? It's good to see you. This is doing great.

Good to see you. So I agree with what Heidi said. I think the game changed in a very unexpected way when House Republicans actually passed the debt ceiling increase. And by the way, what they attached to it, most Americans would think that's pretty reasonable, like take spending all the way back to where it was five months ago and then let it grow, but at a modest pace and claw back some of the excess COVID spending that hasn't even been spent yet. A few other items that nobody thinks the Republicans are going to get all of those. Thought they were extreme, MAGA, hyper and saying. Well, this is the problem.

The assumption was that it would either be that or nothing. And so President Biden figured, well, I can just wait them out. And when they put something on his desk, I think this is completely unsustainable for him to refuse to negotiate. But they're not going to get it. He may not acknowledge he's negotiating, but there's negotiations.

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