| Let’s get one thing clear: The chances that top leaders from Capitol Hill and President Joe Biden strike a deal this afternoon to raise the nation’s debt limit are, at best, slim to none. That sets the bar for today’s White House meeting low even when the stakes are sky high to avoid a first-in-history default on the nation’s debt. Just how low are expectations set for today? One top leadership aide told Huddle that not only do they not expect much tangible movement today, but that they are hoping the meeting won’t “devolve” into raised voices in the Oval Office. (Flashback to the Dec. 2018 shouting match over government funding.) Positions are so entrenched at this point, with Democrats saying only a clean debt ceiling increase will do and Republicans conditioning an increase on spending cuts, that the two parties will arrive at the White House for Tuesday afternoon’s meeting with almost entirely different premises. Here’s how the four corners of Capitol Hill leadership will come into today’s White House meeting and what they’ll look to get out of it: SCHUMER: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) heads into the meeting in alignment with Biden and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), intent on separating discussions on spending from a path forward to raise the debt limit. The Democratic mantra has been “take the threat of default off the table” to pave the way for talks about federal spending. Beyond that Democratic negotiating position, Schumer holds another card: the House-passed bill that marries significant spending cuts with a debt limit increase wouldn’t survive the Democratically controlled Senate and would likely lose some Senate GOP votes, too. The Senate majority leader, along with everyone else in the room, will be looking for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to articulate some sort of flexibility to move towards something that could potentially pass both chambers, a senior Senate Democratic aide told Huddle. McCONNELL: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is not going to hammer out this deal. And he’s not going to back any deal cooked up on the Senate side in a bipartisan “gang” by self-appointed negotiators. Something that can get 60 votes in the Senate can’t necessarily pass the House, where hard-line corners of McCarthy’s conference don’t want him to budge from what they’ve already passed while others only signed onto that bill with confidence that parts they didn’t like would be negotiated out. McConnell is letting McCarthy lead, knowing that the speaker needs to strike an agreement that he can take back to his fractious, four-seat-majority conference. There’s no way around the House here, a senior Senate GOP aide told Huddle on Monday evening. JEFFRIES: The House minority leader will arrive at the White House as his relationship with the president is still developing, Jennifer Haberkorn reports this morning. For years, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led the relationship between House Democrats and the White House, but Jeffries, who does not have the former speaker’s long history of deal making, is still building his rapport and trust with the president. The minority leader described himself this weekend as being in “lockstep” with the president on the debt ceiling, but is expected to evaluate what role he needs to play in the meeting and ensuing negotiations based on where Biden and McCarthy take the conversation. Jeffries will be expected to deliver the Democratic votes needed in the House to move any kind of compromise that emerges in the coming weeks. McCARTHY: And that leaves the man everyone is watching. McCarthy heads to the White House satisfied that House Republicans have already done their part, passing a package of spending cuts coupled with a one-year debt ceiling increase. Many of his House GOP colleagues framed the bill as a negotiating position for these talks. There was broad expectation at the time of passage that the bill would be winnowed, through negotiations with the White House, to something that could win Democratic votes in the Senate and the president’s signature. But with a narrow majority and mounting frustration that Biden did not agree to sit down earlier, McCarthy could try to stick closer to his House-passed proposal, which he clocked as a victory in uniting his conference. Some on the right flank of the House GOP, including Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), will view McCarthy compromising or departing from their bill at all as failure to execute on his promise to rein in federal spending. Norman told POLITICO last month that McCarthy made promises to keep intact all of the red meat spending provisions that the House already approved. McCarthy will be looking to get Biden to talk about spending in relation to the debt limit, connecting the two issues that Democrats have been adamant about divorcing. X-Date Update: A new, dire debt warning: U.S. could breach limit in early June, from Caitlin Emma Related reads: The first test of the Biden-Jeffries relationship comes with the global economy in the balance, from Jennifer Haberkorn; Chaos? Kumbaya? How the debt limit standoff might end, from Josh Boak at The Associated Press
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