It is hard to understate just how close the U.S. is to hitting the debt ceiling.

There are talks – again. But no agreement. No bill. Nothing close as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated on NBC that the ‘hard’ deadline was June 1. Yellen added that the government would struggle to pay its bills beyond June 15 if Congress doesn’t take action.

So how do the sides sidestep an epic collision with the debt ceiling?

At least one Republican lawmaker with whom Fox spoke suggested that the government was rushing on cruise control toward the debt limit – and Congress was past the point of no return of a crisis. 

‘There is too much to do and too little time if the date is June 1,’ said the lawmaker who asked they not be identified. ‘No way.’

How President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., bridge this chasm is unclear. Observers note that negotiations this intense should have been underway at least in April – with the expectation the sides would hit hiccups like the ones on Friday. That pause cost the sides nearly three days of talks. And anyone who has watched negotiations like these know that those speedbumps are inevitable.

It’s possible there could be more. That’s why they may not have enough time to wrap this up.

To wit:

Let’s just say there is a deal by Tuesday. It likely takes until Thursday to get the legislative text into form. McCarthy insists he will adhere to the House’s ’72 hour rule.’ That allows Members to study and consider the bill. It also means the House may not even debate and vote on the bill until the coming weekend.

Therefore, the Senate may not even get the legislation until Monday, May 29th – Memorial Day. Even if the Senate is really humming, that could take until Wednesday, May 31st to wrap things up. But more likely, June 1 or 2.

And remember, this is the timeline if everything goes swimmingly.

But what we’ve left out of this analysis are the potential contours of a deal – to say nothing of what it takes to get the votes to pass such a package.

Here we go.

It’s about the math.

Mixing the cocktail of Republican and Democratic votes to pass a still theoretical bill through the House (and the Senate – we’ll get to that at some point) involves very precise, yet mysterious political alchemy. House Republicans have long talked about wanting a ‘a majority of the majority’ to be in favor of any prospective package. That concept goes back decades with House Republicans. But this is 2023. Plus, McCarthy endured the longest Speaker’s race since 1859 to get the job. 

How does McCarthy agree to any pact which doesn’t have close to 200 of the 222 Republicans in the House in favor of it?

It’s likely that anywhere from 20 to 40 House Republicans are hard noes on any bill which doesn’t replicate the debt ceiling bill muscled through last month. 

Fox is told McCarthy’s floor is 180 GOP yeas. One knowledgeable source told Fox that anything south of 180 could mean a conservative Republican files a motion to ‘vacate the chair’ and force a vote for Speaker in the middle of the Congress.

This has always been the concern for the Speaker. Can he accept a deal which may put his own political career in jeopardy? Or, is there a way to finesse this so everyone believes they’ve secured a win?

This begs the question about what coalition of House Democrats would support a plan? How many Democrats can House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., provide or afford to lose? However, this conversation is not really about Jeffries. It’s about President Biden. The President faces liberal Members demanding he just use the ’14th Amendment’ (which says that federal public debts shall not be in question) and conclude the argument. Progressives are leery of President Biden giving up too much – especially on domestic spending and work requirements for those receiving welfare benefits. 

Who exactly is going to be willing to walk the plank to get this done or hold true to their principles?

Here’s another challenge for McCarthy: the House’s debt ceiling bill could pose a problem in the negotiations.

President Biden withheld from negotiations until the House approved its bill – albeit one which secured zero Democratic votes and has no chance of overcoming a filibuster in the Democratically-controlled Senate. 

However, there is something worth noting about the House GOP’s debt ceiling bill. Passage of that measure was McCarthy’s greatest accomplishment since clasping the Speaker’s gavel. He had little to stand on in these negotiations had the House not approved the Republican package. But passage of that measure could also box in McCarthy. 

Fox is told that more and more House Republicans refuse to budge from that bill. McCarthy pushed so hard to get lawmakers to agree to that package that many are reluctant to accept anything short of that measure.

Moreover, McCarthy isn’t former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pelosi often designed legislation to score the necessary matrix of votes. One senior House Republican told Fox last week that McCarthy is more ‘big picture’ and hands off. He wants the membership to reach consensus first. He defers to them.

That may work internally. But a debt ceiling accord must be something which President Biden and at least some Democrats can accept. Otherwise, it’s just a debate among Republicans. 

This brings us to the quintessence of ‘the math.’ The vote counting surrounding the House GOP’s April debt ceiling bill is the centerpiece. How many Republicans are married to that bill? How many can go for something less than that bill? That will dictate where this debate heads over the next few days. 

Now, let’s go back to timing.

The casual observer may believe that lawmakers are all hunkered down in Washington until they find a solution. That’s not the case. Only few were in DC over the weekend. The House of Representatives is in session this week – but scheduled for a recess next week. So what happens if it gets to the weekend and there is no legislative traffic on the debt ceiling? Do Republicans keep the House in session or do they cut everyone loose until there is something to vote on?

This slices two ways. 

Congressional leaders could apply ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ tactics to convince members to vote yes. In other words, hold everyone ‘captive’ in Washington until they come around and vote yes. But that could mean torching part of the House’s recess – to say nothing of various Memorial Day activities lawmakers love to attend back home.

It is generally thought keeping everyone in DC could help leaders. It makes it easier to count and track where the votes lie. However, Fox is told that holding everyone in Washington could stir dissent if some Republicans don’t like the plan McCarthy ultimately cobbles together with Mr. Biden. 

A surefire way to tick off Members and make them even more grumpy? Keep everyone here over a holiday weekend and blow up part of the recess – with nothing to vote on. 

It’s unclear which path the sides may take.

But what if there’s nothing to vote on? 

That spells trouble as the country hurtles toward the June 1 debt ceiling deadline. 

Chad Pergram currently serves as a senior congressional correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the network in September 2007 and is based out of Washington, D.C.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., is expected to endorse Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., during his 2024 presidential campaign announcement Monday, a Scott official confirmed to Fox News.

Thune will deliver remarks at Scott’s presidential announcement event on Monday in North Charleston, according to the official. Scott filed the paperwork to run for president last week and has already started releasing campaign ads.

Thune is the second-highest-ranking Republican in the Senate behind Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He will be the highest-ranking Republican on Capitol Hill to back the South Carolina senator. 

Fellow GOP South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds will also be endorsing Scott’s presidential run.

Scott’s entry into the race further crowds a Republican primary field that currently includes former President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, businessman Perry Johnson, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former radio host Larry Elder and businessman Ryan Binkley. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to announce his candidacy this week while former Vice President Mike Pence is considering a run for the White House.

Thune’s support for Scott solidifies his efforts to move the party away from Trump, who holds a significant lead over his Republican competitors in recent polling. The South Dakota senator distanced himself from Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, stating at the time that attempts to challenge the election results would ‘go down like a shot dog’ on the Senate floor. 

As was the case with several other Republicans who refused to back Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of a stolen election, Thune drew the ire of the former president, who then threatened that the senator’s political career would be over. 

However, Thune easily won reelection last year.

After outlasting Trump’s failed attempt to oust him from Congress, Thune has said it is time for the GOP to move beyond the former president’s obsession with the 2020 election. Thune declared in November that ‘it’s clear that running on relitigating the 2020 election is not a winning strategy.’

In December, Thune expressed approval of a potential Scott presidential run.

‘He’s obviously helped a lot of people around the country in the last year, raised a lot of money and built a lot of relationships that can be very useful if he does [run],’ Thune told POLITICO at the time.

Scott, who is prolific at raising funds, has said he hopes to be a unifier in the Republican Party and to avoid the polarizing approach of other presidential candidates.

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NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – EXCLUSIVE – It’s one the biggest questions facing Republican Sen. Tim Scott as he jumps into the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Will Republican voters be receptive to what Scott calls his ‘optimistic, positive message anchored in conservatism.’

Scott, who on Monday will formally declare his candidacy for the White House at a campaign kick off event at Charleston Southern University, his alma mater, said in an exclusive interview with Fox News just ahead of his 2024 launch that GOP presidential primary voters are hungry for a what he’s preaching.

He’ll join a GOP White House field that includes former President Donald Trump, who announced his third straight presidential run in November and remains the clear front-runner in the Republican nomination race. 

Trump has continued to relitigate his 2020 election loss to President Biden as he repeats his unproven claims that his defeat was due to an election ‘stolen’ through ‘massive voter fraud.’ And the former president’s listing of his many legal grievances also became a campaign staple this year.

Asked by Fox News if Republican voters are receptive to his positive message, Scott pointed to his recent stops in the two states that kick off the GOP presidential nominating calendar and emphasized ‘what I’ve seen in Iowa and New Hampshire is that voters are thrilled to have a conversation about optimism, a conversation about how to move this country forward together.’

‘I’m stunned at the hunger for something positive as long as its anchored in conservatism. As long as you have a backbone,’ he added.

Scott, a rising star in the GOP and the only Black Republican in the Senate, is launching his campaign in North Charleston, the town where he grew up.

‘Here’s a kid that grew up in North Charleston, South Carolina, mired in poverty, in a single parent household. To think about one day being the President of the United States just tells me that the evolution of the American soul continues to move toward that more perfect union,’ the senator stressed.

‘There’s not a better place to have a conversation than on a campus with a spirit of academic excellent and a Christian environment and that Charleston Southern University. So I’m glad to be here at the home of the Bucs,’ Scott added.

Scott’s campaign kick off comes three days after he filed with the Federal Election Commission, which officially launched his presidential campaign. Scott’s move came as he launched a $6 million ad blitz into the summer in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Scott kicked off a ‘Faith in America’ listening tour in February. That tour has taken the senator Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as his home state of South Carolina, which holds the third contest in the GOP primary and caucus lineup. Scott will return to Iowa and New Hampshire on Wednesday and Thursday, following his campaign kick off.

He joins a growing field of GOP White House hopefuls who are challenging Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose anti-woke crusade has made him popular with conservatives across the country, is expected to officially file paperwork this week with the FEC to launch a presidential campaign, with a formal announcement to follow. DeSantis is second in the Republican primary polls, behind Trump but far ahead of the rest of the field.

That field will also include former Vice President Mike Pence, who’s expected to launch a campaign in the coming weeks. 

Scott will also face serious competition from Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations and former two-term South Carolina governor who launched a 2024 presidential campaign in February. Haley, who’s spending plenty of time on the campaign trail in the early voting states, and Scott share many of the same allies and donors. 

Also in the race are former two-term Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, multi-millionaire entrepreneur, best-selling author and conservative commentator Vivek Ramaswamy, Michigan businessman and 2022 gubernatorial candidate Perry Johnson and conservative radio talk show host and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder.

Govs. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire are seriously mulling presidential bids, with announcements likely in the coming weeks, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie expected to announce in the coming days whether he’ll launch a second GOP presidential campaign.

Scott, who cruised to re-election last November to what he has said will be his final six-year term in the Senate, is expected to court evangelical Christian voters, who play an outsized role in GOP politics in Iowa and his home state. 

Another question for Scott, who’s currently polling in the single digits with the rest of the pack, trailing DeSantis and far behind Trump, is how he can broaden his support and rise in the polls.

‘I think after the announcement I think the polls will start to change,’ Scott told Fox News. ‘I think there’s an enthusiasm that will continue to spread throughout the country. And we’ll start doing the things candidates do, which will include going back to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and beyond. So we’ll spend the time, stay on the campaign trail, and make sure we have the message that works.’

While Scott doesn’t have the same national standing with conservatives that Trump and DeSantis enjoy, he’s known as a ferocious fundraiser who had roughly $22 million in his campaign coffers at the end of March, which can be transferred to his presidential campaign. The fundraising war chest could give Scott a head start over some of his rivals for the Republican nomination.

EXCLUSIVE – First-term Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio is weighing in on his state’s burgeoning 2024 Senate primary.

Vance is endorsing business executive Bernie Moreno in the Republican primary to challenge longtime Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown next year in a race that could determine if the GOP wins back the Senate majority. News of the endorsement was shared first with Fox News Digital on Monday.

Moreno, a successful Cleveland-based business leader and luxury auto dealership giant, is making his second straight bid for the Senate. So is the other prominent GOP candidate in the race to date, state Sen. Matt Dolan, a former top county prosecutor and Ohio assistant attorney general.

‘Bernie is a lifelong businessman, who has created thousands of good-paying middle-class jobs and is a strong America First conservative, who will never stop fighting to protect Ohio workers and families. Bernie is committed to securing our southern border, getting tough on China and taking the fight to the woke corporations waging war against our conservative values,’ Vance said in a statement.

Vance, who called Moreno a ‘friend,’ added that ‘It’s time to turn the tides on the establishment insiders who sell out our country to special interests and elect more political outsiders like Bernie, who will always put America First in Washington, DC. I’m looking forward to having Bernie as a colleague in the U.S. Senate.’

Moreno, who invested millions of his own money to run TV commercials to try and boost his 2022 Senate bid, suspended his first Senate campaign in February last year after requesting and holding a private meeting with former President Donald Trump.

The crowded and combustible 2022 GOP Senate nomination in Ohio was eventually won by Vance, a former venture capitalist and best-selling author who landed Trump’s endorsement just before last May’s primary. Vance went on to defeat longtime Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan in last November’s general election to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman.

After dropping out of the race in 2022, Moreno forged a close relationship with Vance. Moreno raised money and campaigned with Vance across the state and played the role of Ryan in Vance’s debate preparations. Moreno, an immigrant who arrived in the U.S. legally from Colombia with his family as a boy, is spotlighting his credentials as an outsider as he runs for the 2024 GOP Senate nomination.

‘I’m honored to have earned the endorsement of Senator Vance. Not only is he a close personal friend, but as a fellow political outsider and entrepreneur, he’s shown that DC desperately needs new ways of thinking,’ Moreno said in a statement. ‘When I win this race, I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with JD in the Senate to fight for Ohio families, end the invasion at our southern border, protect American culture and traditions, rein in Big Tech and Big Media, stop Biden’s radical Green New Deal policies and defend our America First conservative values against the unholy alliance of woke corporations and Big Government.’

Moreno argued that ‘the career politicians and establishment insiders in both parties have failed us all, and just like JD, I will be a fighter for Ohio’s workers and families against the corrupt special interests in the swamp. As Senator, Ohioans can trust that I will always do everything possible to grow our middle class and will be dedicated to putting what’s best for America and its people at the center of everything I do.’

A source close to Vance told Fox News that ‘beyond being personally close to Bernie and viewing him as an ideological ally, JD is endorsing Bernie so early because he feels strongly about ensuring that we don’t see a replay of the type of bloody primary fight that he had to deal with last cycle, which left him with depleted resources going into the general election. He believes that Bernie is the candidate best positioned to quickly unify both the conservative grassroots and the Ohio donor class around his campaign to give Republicans the strongest shot at defeating Sherrod Brown next year.’

Due to their friendship, it’s no surprise that Vance is backing Moreno in the 2024 Senate primary. And there’s speculation that the senator’s backing of Moreno may be a prelude to a Trump endorsement in the months ahead.

Trump, who’s the clear front-runner in the GOP presidential nomination race as he makes his third straight White House run, was endorsed by Moreno in February.

And Trump called Moreno ‘highly respected’ as he took to social media in April to encourage Moreno to launch a Senate campaign. And earlier this month, Moreno was endorsed by Trump ally Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point Action conservative political organization.

While Moreno has the ability to self-fund his campaign, he’s expected to fundraise aggressively, as he did in his first Senate bid. Moreno’s campaign announced that they hauled in contributions from more than 500,000 donors during the first week after their Senate launch.

Dolan – whose family owns Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians – also shelled out millions of dollars of his own money to run ads for his 2022 Senate bid. He surged near the end of last year’s primary race, coming in third behind Vance and just behind former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who came in second. Dolan is expected to again invest millions of his own money into his 2024 campaign.

Rep. Warren Davidson and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose are among other Republicans considering Senate bids.

The winner of next year’s GOP primary will challenge Brown, who’s the only Democrat to win statewide in Ohio in the past decade. Brown will be heavily targeted by Republicans in a state that was once a premiere battleground but has shifted red over the past six years.

Democrats currently control the U.S. Senate with a 51-49 majority, but Republicans are looking at a very favorable Senate map in 2024 with Democrats defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs. Three of those seats are in red states that Trump carried in 2020: Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. Five others are in key swing states narrowly carried by Biden in 2020: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has remained tight-lipped after Special Counsel John Durham’s report showed glaring missteps by the Department of Justice and FBI when it launched the Trump-Russia investigation.

Pelosi’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital this past week with regard to her response to Durham’s report that found ‘the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law’ during the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Pelosi’s office also declined to respond to the question of whether she would walk back any of her past insinuations that Trump colluded with Russia and that the 2016 election was somehow illegitimate.

‘This week we saw cold hard evidence of the Trump campaign, indeed the Trump family, eagerly intending to collude, possibly, with Russia, a hostile foreign power, to influence American elections,’ Pelosi said in July 2017 in response to news of Donald Trump Jr.’s 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower, a meeting over which the Mueller investigation ultimately declined to file charges.

Pelosi also called on then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to establish a commission to ‘get to the bottom of the Trump campaign’s role in Russia’s assault on our democracy.’

‘Our election was hijacked,’ Pelosi tweeted in May of that same year. ‘There is no question.’

In June 2020, Pelosi continued to push the collusion narrative by saying that ‘all roads lead to Putin’ when it comes to President Donald Trump. ‘I don’t know what the Russians have on the president, politically, personally or financially.’

Durham said his investigation into the Trump collusion probe also revealed that ‘senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically-affiliated persons and entities.’

‘This information in part triggered and sustained Crossfire Hurricane and contributed to the subsequent need for Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller’s investigation,’ the report said. ‘In particular, there was significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded [directly or indirectly] by Trump’s political opponents.’

‘The Department did not adequately examine or question these materials and the motivations of those providing them, even when at about the same time the Director of the FBI and others learned of significant and potentially contrary intelligence,’ the report added.

Trump has called for former FBI Director James Comey, who Pelosi called a ‘great man’ in July 2016, and other Democrats involved in pushing Russian collusion to pay a ‘heavy price’ in response to the Durham report.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

House Republicans will be able to view documents this week relating to President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal after months of stonewalling by the State Department.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, will access the documents at the State Department offices this week after threatening to hit Secretary of State Antony Blinken with a contempt of Congress charge. The document, a dissent cable from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, details any misgivings State Department officials there had with Biden’s withdrawal plans.

McCaul had subpoenaed the document multiple times in the early months of this year, but Blinken had failed to provide it. The State Department instead offered a briefing on the document’s contents, a move McCaul accepted while still demanding to see the document itself.

McCaul will visit the department this week to read the document alongside Rep. Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, according to Punchbowl News.

The pair will view the document in full, but the names of those who contributed to the dissent report will be redacted.

Blinken has argued from the beginning that providing access to the dissent report could dissuade State Department employees from being truthful in future dissent reports. The document is meant to be an opportunity for officials to be candid regarding upcoming operations.

Blinken blew past the original subpoena deadline to supply the documents in March, then again in April when McCaul pushed back the deadline. McCaul set his latest line in the sand at May 1, and Blinken again refused to provide the documents.

McCaul threatened to charge Blinken with contempt of Congress as a result. The congressman told Fox News Digital last week that he planned to introduce the contempt charge on May 24.

‘I don’t take this lightly because a Secretary of State’s never been held in contempt by Congress before,’ McCaul told Fox. ‘And I think the secretary realizes that and the gravity. They probably prefer not to go down this route as well. But if they do not comply, we’re prepared to move forward next week with a markup for resolution of contempt.’

Even if passed by the House, the contempt charge would largely have been a symbolic move, as President Biden’s Justice Department would likely decline to prosecute the case.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, lashed out at President Biden for ‘scaremongering’ over the national debt Sunday, telling Fox News that the president is ‘willing to tank the economy’ rather than negotiate with Republicans.

Cruz’s comments came just hours after Biden declared himself ‘blameless’ should the U.S. default on its debt. The senator argued Biden should be negotiating with Congress in Washington rather than addressing G-7 nations in Hiroshima, Japan.

‘It really is unfortunate to see how Joe Biden is approaching this job. It’s all politics all the time, and he consistently goes to the hard left. He’s off in Hiroshima right now, in Japan. He should be in Washington, D.C. He should be sitting down and working out a deal, working out a compromise,’ Cruz said.

‘He could take default off the table. Joe Biden doesn’t want to take default off the table. Why? Because he wants to scaremonger. He wants to scare people into saying, ‘Look at this bad thing that I, Joe Biden, am threatening is going to happen,” he continued.

Biden suggested Sunday morning that he has the authority to unilaterally increase the debt ceiling using the 14th Amendment. Cruz and other experts have blasted that claim, however, saying it would never stand up in court.

‘Biden’s position on the 14th Amendment is legally frivolous,’ Cruz said. ‘By the way, someone else who agreed with that was Barack Obama. The left tried to convince Obama to do this and Obama said, ‘No, you can’t do this under the Constitution.”

Biden acknowledged Sunday that lengthy court proceedings would likely render the move moot, however, pushing a decision well past the debt ceiling deadline.

Republicans in Congress forced Biden to the negotiating table after months of the White House insisting there would be no discussion of the issue. Biden argued Sunday morning that certain ‘MAGA Republicans’ are seeking to cause a default in an effort to crash the economy ahead of his re-election effort.

‘I’ve done my part,’ Biden said.