US Politics In 60 Seconds

Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics.

Who won the debt ceiling showdown between President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy?

And the answer is everyone's a winner. President Biden, first and foremost, avoided a default, which would have been a terrible consequence for Biden politically and the US and world economy. Very happy that didn't happen. Biden can now spin the modest spending reductions in the bill that increased the debt ceiling as a bipartisan victory, which should potentially help in his reelection campaign as he tries to campaign as a quasi-moderate, which is what brought him to office in 2020 and he put the debt ceiling issue behind us for another two years until at least January of 2025, which is going to be after the next presidential election. And the US is likely to revisit a lot of these fiscal issues once again, using the debt ceiling as a point of leverage to achieve further spending cuts and potentially an extension of the Trump tax cuts that expire in 2026.