(CNN) — Former first lady Michelle Obama said she’s “terrified” about the potential outcome of the 2024 election, listing November’s presidential contest as among the fears that keep her awake at night, in a podcast interview released Monday.

“What’s going to happen in this next election? I’m terrified about what could possibly happen, because our leaders matter. Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways sometimes I think people take for granted,” Obama told Jay Shetty on his podcast “On Purpose.”

“The fact that people think that government — ‘eh, does it really even do anything?’ — and I’m like ‘Oh my God, does government do everything for us, and we cannot take this democracy for granted.’ And I worry sometimes that we do. Those are the things that keep me up,” she said.

Her comments come as President Joe Biden begins to ramp up his reelection campaign, narrowing in on a message that democracy is on the ballot this year.

Still, many Democrats have expressed concern that his message isn’t resonating, pointing to polls showing him in a close contest with former President Donald Trump.

In the interview, the former first lady listed a number of other items that worry her, including: “Are people going to vote, and why aren’t people voting?”

“Those are the things that keep me up, because you don’t have control over them. And you wonder: ‘Where are we in this? Where are our hearts?’” she said.

Later, Obama suggested there was a double standard when it came to Trump’s legal entanglements and what might happen if a similar predicament befell a Black man.

“The bars are different for people in life. That I’ve learned,” she said.

Without naming Trump, she continued: “Other people can be indicted a bunch of times and still run for office. Black men can’t. You just learn to be good. And in the end, you benefit from that extra resilience.”

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Washington and Tokyo (CNN) — Angst, unease and outrage are spreading through corners of the Biden administration as Israeli forces show no signs of letting up their relentless attacks inside Gaza and the civilian death toll in the besieged enclave – already in the thousands – continues to climb.

One month into the Israel-Hamas war, some senior officials privately say there are aspects of Israel’s military operations they simply cannot stomach defending; calls for the US to back a ceasefire are growing among government employees; and others are distraught by the incessant images of Palestinian civilians being killed by Israeli airstrikes, multiple sources told CNN.

“It has created great moral anxiety,” said one senior administration official. “But no one can say it because we all work at the pleasure of the president and he’s all in.”

This week, a divide emerged between the US and Israel over the future of Gaza after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested in an interview Israel would have responsibility for security in Gaza for an “indefinite period.” On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated US opposition to any “reoccupation” of the Gaza Strip but did allow that “there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict.”

Still, the pushback did not appear to portend a larger break between the two allies. Even as the administration grapples with growing anger within its ranks, eruptions of public outrage and protests and mounting condemnation among its global allies, it shows little sign of publicly distancing itself from Netanyahu or expressing any kind of denunciation of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Some of the fiercest backlash has come from inside the State Department, including an official who publicly resigned from the agency last month over the Biden’s administration’s approach to the conflict. Elsewhere in the administration, officials are quietly fuming as the civilian death toll mounts.

An open letter signed by hundreds of US Agency for International Development staffers is urging the administration to call for a ceasefire, something the administration has so far rejected.

“For USAID efforts to be effective and for lives to be saved, we need an immediate ceasefire and cessation of hostilities,” the letter states. “We believe that further catastrophic loss of human life can only be avoided if the United States Government calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages, and the restoration of water, food, fuel, and electricity to the people of Gaza by the State of Israel.”

Reminders of emotions running high have not been hard to come by. The president was confronted by a protester calling for a ceasefire at a private fundraiser last week; pro-Palestinian protests have been a daily occurrence near the White House compound; and this week, one of the entrances near the West Wing was covered in bright-red handprints – meant to mimic blood – and words like “genocide Joe.”

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that “the president understands that there’s strong emotions and feelings here, all around, all across the board – and here inside the administration and the federal government, that’s certainly the case as well.”

“We have been engaging with – with partners and organizations and experts and analysts and people with different perspectives, to listen to their concerns, make sure that we understand them as we develop policy,” Kirby said.

Frustration with Israeli government  growing

In the immediate aftermath of the deadly October 7 Hamas attack, there was a public and private acknowledgement that Israel would respond fiercely to what officials called an unprecedented assault. One source told CNN there was a sense among US officials that the Israeli leaders weren’t able to think straight about their offensive because of the shock and trauma of the attack.

Although US officials have said the Israeli government has been refining its offensive, frustration inside the Biden administration has only been growing as Israel has in different ways rebuffed US’ calls for the Israel Defense Forces to take painstaking efforts to limit civilian deaths, enact humanitarian pauses, stem growing violence in the West Bank and make long-term plans for Gaza. That reality is deepening Washington’s bind as it works to support its ally while also containing growing international backlash.

In conversations with their Israeli counterparts at different levels, Biden administration officials have been stepping up calls for Israel to scale back its relentless aerial bombardment of Gaza, which has claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinians, people familiar with the conversations said.

“They’re being told that they need to change course here,” one source said. “To pull back, to stop the bombing and engage in a more surgical, precise counterterrorism operation.”

The rhetoric from top officials has also changed publicly in the weeks since the October 7 attack, with more explicit calls to mitigate the civilian toll and acknowledge the impact that the gruesome images from Gaza will have on the Israeli government’s long-term strategy in Gaza.

“We need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians. We’ve been clear that as Israel conducts its campaign to defeat Hamas, how it does so matters,” Blinken said in Tel Aviv Friday following meetings with Israeli officials. “There will be no partners for peace if they’re consumed by humanitarian catastrophe and alienated by any perceived indifference to their plight.”

Still, the public messaging has continued to emphasize Israel’s right to defend itself and rebuff any calls for a ceasefire. There are public and private acknowledgements from the administration that there cannot be a stop to the fighting right now as the next phase of the offensive plays out.

However, thus far, private American calls for Israel to shift course on that offensive to stem the heavy humanitarian toll have been rejected. Even though Israel “significantly refined what originally was their plan,” according to a senior administration official, the expanded assault on Gaza is nonetheless viewed by many American officials as too severe.

On Monday, Kirby told reporters during a virtual briefing that officials “have seen some indications that there are there are efforts being applied in certain scenarios to try to minimize (civilian casualties), but I don’t want to overstate that.”

A senior Israeli official acknowledged on Tuesday that the administration raises the concerns in private conversations but argued that mitigating civilian deaths is “very complicated in a densely populated area where Hamas is embedded within the population.”

“We are well aware of the potential for collateral damage and there are a lot of efforts to distinguish between civilians and terrorists,” the official said. “It’s our obligation to minimize collateral damage”

Political blowback on Biden

The ramifications are being felt at home and abroad. Biden is coming under growing pressure from members of his Democratic Party to speak out more forcefully on Israel’s tactics, although there is still strong bipartisan support in Congress for Israel’s self-defense.

Meanwhile, US allies in the Arab world are making clear their deep anger at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Blinken left the Middle East on Monday with few tangible results to show for his flurry of meetings with leaders across the region.

“All of this is a work in progress,” he said to CNN at a news conference in Turkey.

And while American officials said Friday they anticipated Israel’s air campaign to decrease this week, heavy bombardment continues in the Palestinian enclave.

Biden has grown frustrated at the scale of civilian death, officials say, and the administration has watched with growing discomfort as Israel bombed a densely populated refugee camp and an ambulance near a hospital, both of which it claimed were targeting Hamas.

“Our conversations with the Israelis are … very direct,” a senior administration official said last week, citing the speech Biden himself delivered in Tel Aviv warning Israelis against making the same mistakes the US did following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Biden has steadfastly supported Israel’s right — and, in his words, responsibility — to respond to the Hamas attacks, which left more than 1,000 people dead and hundreds taken hostage.

Still, American officials have been quick to point out that Israel is making its own decisions on who and what to target.

“It is not our military. It is not a US military campaign. And so, I don’t want to be here armchair quarterbacking,” the official added. “But I will say, when there are incidents, very certainly, we have conversations with the Israelis.”

American relationship with the Israelis under the microscope

In a telephone call Monday, Biden raised the need for “tactical pauses” directly with Netanyahu. But Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have steadfastly rejected the idea of a lengthy pause in the fighting unless hostages are released.

In an interview with ABC News on Monday, Netanyahu voiced openness to “tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there.” Yet American officials say a break in fighting to allow for the release of hundreds of hostages will require more than mere hours.

Administration officials argue they have had success in some areas as they work to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. After Biden personally raised the importance of significantly increasing the number of aid trucks allowed into the strip during a phone call with Netanyahu, Israel said as many as 100 trucks a day would be allowed to cross the border from Egypt.

American pressure also led to internet and phone connectivity being restored at the start of Israel’s expanded assault, though it has been cut periodically since then.

Still, steady pressure by the Biden administration on Israel to refine its war plans and define its objectives in Gaza has not yielded the level of clarity many US officials say is necessary.

Biden has said explicitly he believes Israeli “reoccupation” of Gaza would be a “big mistake.” But in his interview Monday, Netanyahu told ABC News that Gaza should be governed by “those who don’t want to continue the way of Hamas” before adding: “I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it.”

He didn’t elaborate, and US administration officials have said they are frustrated by the lack of a clear plan from Israel about its future plans for dealing with Gaza if it succeeds in taking out Hamas. Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday that Israel is “not talking about any sort of ongoing occupation of the Gaza Strip.”

Asked about Netanyahu’s comments on ABC News Monday that Israel will have the “overall security responsibility” in Gaza for an “indefinite period” after the war ends, Regev said: “We have to distinguish between a security presence and political control.”

Speaking in Tokyo on Wednesday, Blinken explicitly laid out the US’ terms for “durable peace and security” in Gaza after the war, stressing that its territory must not be reduced or occupied.

“The United States believes key elements should include no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Not now; not after the war,” he said at a news conference in Tokyo following the G7 Foreign Ministerial.

“No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No, re-occupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza,” he continued.

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(CNN) — The White House is now “girding for a shutdown” and senior West Wing officials are drawing up plans for which personnel would be deemed “essential” starting on October 1 as the deadline to fund the government is only a handful of days away.

Most of President Joe Biden’s senior-most aides are expected to be designated “essential,” meaning they would not be furloughed, one administration official said. The contingency planning currently underway kicked off in earnest on Friday when the Office of Management and Budget began its formal process of communicating with agencies about the possibility of bringing to halt all work deemed “non-essential.”

Within the ranks of the White House, prior shutdowns have seen employees whose roles carrying the title “Special Assistant to the President” – a rank that also carries access to the Navy Mess – automatically deemed to be serving in essential roles. A 2023 directory of White House staff and salaries submitted to Congress each year showed 97 employees with that title.

Even Biden is planning to remain in Washington this weekend, a relatively rare occurrence, as the likelihood of a shutdown loomed. He typically decamps for one of his Delaware homes or Camp David on Friday afternoons, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday that he would remain in the capital.

The active preparations related to White House staffing is yet another sign of the widespread anticipation in Washington that lawmakers on Capitol Hill may fail to find a way to fund the government by the end-of-month deadline.

With four days until funding expires, Senate leadership on Tuesday reached a deal that would keep the government open through November 17, with $6.2 billion in funding for Ukraine and $6 billion for domestic disasters, CNN reported. A White House official had said earlier this week that Biden would be “broadly supportive” of a Senate-brokered deal, even if it included a fraction of the $24 billion the administration was seeking to continue assisting Ukraine.

But even after a deal was reached in the Senate, White House officials maintained that the ultimate outcome remained unpredictable, in large part because it was impossible to guess what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s next moves might be. McCarthy, who may see a harder-line package with steeper spending cuts as the antidote to his intra-party politics, has not committed to putting a bipartisan Senate bill on floor for a vote.

“Ultimately it’s going to come down to Kevin McCarthy and his conference,” said National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.”

Behind the scenes, the White House is not confident the two chambers can reach a mutually agreed deal in the next few days.

“Nothing is inevitable, but every day that passes, it’s more likely,” a White House official said of a shutdown. “It’s hard to say we are confident about anything.”

The administration has been rolling out new warnings this week about what the effects of the shutdown would be, focusing Wednesday on the effects to travel. The White House warned a shutdown could risk “significant delays for travelers” across the country.

“During an Extreme Republican Shutdown, more than 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Officers – in addition to thousands of other Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel – would have to show up to do their critical jobs without getting paid until funding becomes available,” a White House news release said.

It added, “In previous shutdowns, this led to significant delays and longer wait times for travelers at airports across the country.”

CNN has reported during previous shutdowns that many of the TSA and air traffic control personnel were forced to call out from work to find other ways to pay their bills. The White House also noted that a shutdown “would halt air traffic controller training – potentially leading to long-term disruptions to the industry at a moment when we’ve seen critical progress filling a backlog of controllers.”

The White House has been closely monitoring the ongoing deliberations on Capitol Hill, including McCarthy’s efforts to placate some of the hardline members of his own caucus, as well as the deliberations in the Senate.

Yet without a direct role in the negotiations, the White House strategy has been as much about messaging as it is about finding a funding solution. Biden’s aides are broadly confident that Republicans will catch the blame if the government shutters, and the president recorded a video this week pointing the figure at a “small group of extreme House Republicans” he said are “determined to shut down the government.”

House Republicans, he added, “refuse to stand up to the extremists in their party – so now everyone in America could be forced to pay the price.”

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(CNN) — Lab testing for the substance found at the White House on Sunday has come back positive for cocaine, a spokesman for the Secret Service told CNN.

Previous field testing showed a positive result for cocaine, but the substance was sent for further evaluation and testing, the Secret Service had said previously.

The substance was found near the ground floor entrance to the West Wing, a person familiar with the matter said. The location is where staff-led tours of the White House pass through on their way into the building.

The substance was found near where guests are asked to leave their cell phones before proceeding into the West Wing.

Those tours typically only occur on weekends.

Sources had previously described the substance as a white powder found in a small, zipped bag. It was found by Secret Service personnel conducting routine rounds of the building.

The discovery of the substance on Sunday evening triggered a brief evacuation as part of what the Secret Service described as “precautionary closures.”

President Joe Biden was at Camp David over the weekend and returned to the White House Tuesday morning.

Officials have said they are working to determine who brought cocaine into the building.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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Washington (CNN) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday rejected claims that the Justice Department interfered in the Hunter Biden probe, while the White House repeatedly refused to answer questions about a newly released text message where Hunter Biden invoked his father to a Chinese businessman.

In congressional testimony publicly released on Thursday, two IRS whistleblowers who worked on the probe alleged to lawmakers that the president’s son had been given preferential treatment by the Justice Department. The whistleblowers made several explosive allegations, including that the IRS had recommended far more serious charges for the president’s son, that US Attorney in Delaware David Weiss was blocked from bringing charges in other states and that Garland denied a request from Weiss to be named as a special counsel.

Hunter Biden has since agreed to plead guilty next month to two tax misdemeanors and struck a deal with federal prosecutors to resolve a felony gun charge. His attorney, Chris Clark, on Friday said “any suggestion the investigation was not thorough, or cut corners, or cut my client any slack, is preposterous and deeply irresponsible.”

When pushed on the allegations during a news conference Friday, Garland said that Weiss was “permitted to continue his investigation and to make a decision to prosecute any way in which he wanted to and in any district in which he wanted to.”

“I don’t know how it would be possible for anybody to block him from bringing a prosecution, given that he has this authority,” Garland said.

Garland rejected any claim that he would not appoint Weiss as a special counsel, stating that “Mr. Weiss never made that request to me.”

“Mr. Weiss had, in fact, more authority than a special counsel would have,” Garland added. “He had and has complete authority, as I said, to bring a case anywhere he wants in his discretion.”

Additionally, Garland said he would “support Mr. Weiss explaining or testifying” about the allegations raised by the whistleblowers “when he deems it appropriate.”

White House avoids questions Hunter Biden text

Later Friday, the White House refused to say Friday whether Biden was present in July 2017 when Hunter Biden texted a Chinese business partner, claiming he was sitting with his father, and using that claim as leverage to pressure a Chinese company into paying him.

The questions referred to a portion of the testimony in which a IRS supervisor-turned-whistleblower told House lawmakers that Justice Department prosecutors denied requests to look into messages allegedly from Hunter Biden where he used his father as leverage to pressure a Chinese company into paying him.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” according to a document the whistleblower gave to Congress, which quotes from texts that are allegedly from Hunter Biden to the CEO of a Chinese fund management company.

The message continues: “Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand. And now means tonight.” The message goes onto say, “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

The second, unnamed IRS whistleblower also testified to lawmakers about this alleged WhatsApp message, saying prosecutors questioned whether they could be sure Hunter Biden was telling the truth that his father was actually in the room in the messages. The unnamed whistleblower testified that they did not know whether the FBI investigated the message.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, pressed repeatedly on the issue, referred questions to the White House Counsel’s Office, insisting the matter had been addressed.

Ian Sams, a spokesman for the counsel’s office, said in an email that Joe Biden hadn’t been in business with his son. But he did not specifically provide information about Joe Biden’s whereabouts when Hunter texted the Chinese businessman on July 30, 2017.

“As we have said many times before, the President was not in business with his son,” he wrote. “As we have also said many times before, the Justice Department makes decisions in its criminal investigations independently, and in this case, the White House has not been involved.”

But neither said definitively whether Joe Biden was with Hunter when the text was sent.

Asked whether Joe Biden had been involved in coercive business dealings by his son, Jean-Pierre said: “I appreciate the question. I believe my colleague at the White House counsel has answered this question already, has dealt with this, has made it very clear. I just don’t have anything to share outside of what my colleagues have shared.”

In a statement Friday, Hunter Biden’s lawyer Chris Clark suggested the messages were written at a time when the president’s son was suffering from addiction.

“The DOJ investigation covered a period which was a time of turmoil and addiction for my client. Any verifiable words or actions of my client, in the midst of a horrible addiction, are solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family,” the statement read.

President Biden has said he’s never spoken to his son about his foreign business arrangements.

“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” he said in 2019.

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Hiroshima, Japan (CNN) — President Joe Biden issued a stark warning Sunday that congressional Republicans could use a national default to damage him politically and acknowledged time had run out to use potential unilateral actions to raise the federal borrowing limit, a sharp shift in tone days before the deadline to reach an agreement.

Characterizing GOP proposals as “extreme” and warning they couldn’t gain sufficient support in Congress, Biden said he wasn’t able to promise fellow world leaders gathered in Japan for Group of Seven talks the US would not default.

“I can’t guarantee that they will not force a default by doing something outrageous,” he said.

Biden’s remarks, delivered before he left for Washington, were the latest indication that talks between the White House and congressional Republicans remain far apart.

He was expected to speak by phone with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after taking off aboard Air Force One, though it wasn’t clear whether that conversation would break the logjam.

“My guess is he’s going to want to deal directly with me in making sure we’re all on the same page,” he said.

Republicans have been seeking spending cuts in the federal budget in exchange for their support to raise the nation’s borrowing limit. On Sunday, Biden acknowledged “significant” disagreement with Republicans in some areas, insisting that while he’s willing to cut spending, tax “revenue is not off the table” as part of the deal.

McCarthy, in an interview later Sunday with Fox News, disagreed with that characterization, saying Biden previously told him that tax increases were “off the table” and that he wouldn’t agree to them.

“He’s now bringing something to the table that everyone said was off the table,” the California Republican said. “It seems as though he wants to fault more than he wants a deal.”

At his news conference, Biden said that much of what Republicans have proposed “is simply, quite frankly, unacceptable.”

“It’s time for Republicans to accept that there’s no bipartisan deal to be made solely, solely on their partisan terms. … They have to move, as well,” the president said.

Pressed on whether he would be to blame for a default scenario, Biden said that based on what he’s offered, he should be blameless but conceded that “no one will be blameless” as he suggested some of his political rivals could be encouraging a default to sabotage his reelection efforts.

“I think there are some MAGA Republicans in the House who know the damage it would do to the economy, and because I am president, and a president is responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame and that’s the one way to make sure Biden’s not reelected,” he said.

McCarthy, in turn, blamed what he called the “socialist wing of the Democratic Party” for driving Biden’s goals in the negotiations.

“The president keeps changing positions every time Bernie Sanders has a press conference. He gets reactive and he shifts,” the speaker said as he arrived at the US Capitol in Washington on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Biden’s top national security aide told CNN that the stalled debt ceiling and budget negotiations have not undercut American leadership abroad or undermined the G7 summit as it came to a close Sunday.

“When you look at the totality of the last three days, it’s actually a reflection of and an exclamation point on the way in which President Biden has led on the world stage. People understand democracies, and they understand that there are moments in domestic politics when you have got to look at the home front,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

Biden outlines shortcomings of 14th Amendment argument

Biden in his news conference addressed the possibility of using the 14th Amendment to continue US government borrowing in the absence of a deal, suggesting he has the power but not the time to utilize the unilateral action.

“I think we have the authority. The question is, could it be done and invoked in time that it could not – would not be appealed?” Biden asked, calling the question of whether an appeal could be solved before the default deadline “unresolved.”

Pressed by CNN’s Phil Mattingly to clarify whether he thought he could invoke the 14th Amendment as a serious and tangible option, the president made clear that maneuver would not be successful given the short window remaining.

“We have not come up with unilateral action that could succeed in a matter of two weeks or three weeks. That’s the issue. So it’s up to lawmakers. But my hope and intention is to resolve this problem,” he said.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said Sunday a potential invocation of the 14th Amendment would be a “dodge.”

“The president needs to show leadership. ‘OK, House Republicans, American people, you’re concerned about spending, I will meet you there. As opposed to finding a dodge that tries to work its way around,” Cassidy said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned the US could default on its debts as soon as June 1.

Talks at a standoff in Washington

On Saturday afternoon, McCarthy had said negotiators wouldn’t be able to resume talks with the administration until Biden was back in Washington.

“Unfortunately, the White House moved backwards,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to move forward until the president can get back.”

Biden had originally planned to stop in Australia and Papua New Guinea after the G7 summit in Hiroshima, he canceled those portions of the trip amid the debt ceiling talks.

Biden asked his team to coordinate with the speaker to arrange the conversation on Sunday morning Eastern Time, which would be the two men’s first conversation since debt talks appeared to stall amid disputes over spending limits.

Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, who has served as one of the chief negotiators during the debt ceiling talks, said Sunday that he was “not at all” optimistic that a deal can come together.

“I’ve been pessimistic for a while, and something needs to change,” he told CNN.

Earlier Saturday, Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota confirmed that the White House had made an offer seeking to cap future spending at current levels, which Johnson called “unreasonable.”

Johnson, a McCarthy ally and chair of the centrist Main Street Caucus, is one of several key players who has been getting briefed by Republican negotiators on the talks.

“Negotiations did not go well today,” Johnson said. “The paper that the White House provided was a major step backward. And it undermined all the progress that was made Wednesday and Thursday. … It has endangered negotiations.”

Johnson warned, “We are at real risk of default.”

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(CNN) — A meeting between top debt ceiling negotiators from the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office ended Friday night, with neither side able to say when they’d again meet in-person.

Sources at the White House and on Capitol Hill said there were no debt ceiling meetings scheduled for Saturday.

The breakdown in talks came after multiple sources told CNN that earlier discussions had hit a snag, triggering a pause. The setback dashed hopes that there could be a deal in principle by the weekend.

“At the direction of the Speaker of the House, we reengaged, had a very, very candid discussion, talking about where we are, talking about where things need to be, what’s reasonable, acceptable,” Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, who is leading negotiations for House Republicans, told reporters of the brief reconvening late Friday.

Neither Graves nor Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, seemed optimistic that the situation had moved any closer to a deal.

“This wasn’t a negotiation tonight, this was a candid discussion about realistic numbers, a realistic path forward and something that truly changes the trajectory of this country spending and debt problems,” Graves said.

The White House took direct aim at GOP negotiators for not moving off budget proposals to slash federal spending and not addressing new revenues. The statement by communications director Ben LaBolt marked a sharp break from the more optimistic statements delivered by White House officials in recent days and reflected deep frustrations at the state of talks.

The “President assigned an experienced negotiating team and directed them to act in good faith to reach an agreement,” LaBolt wrote in the statement, delivered to reporters traveling with President Joe Biden in Japan for the G7 summit. “But now, Republicans are taking the economy hostage and pushing us to the brink of default, which could cost millions of jobs and tip the country into recession after two years of steady job and wage growth.”

Speaking to reporters Saturday in Japan, however, Biden said he was not concerned “at all” that negotiations with House Republicans will fail to avoid a default.

“This goes in stages. I’ve been in these negotiations before,” the president said.

Earlier Friday in Washington, Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president and one of the lead negotiators for the White House, told reporters they were leaving the Capitol but were “gonna keep working tonight.”

McCarthy had told Fox Business earlier Friday evening that he remained “very frustrated” with the White House’s position.

GOP Rep. Dusty Johnson, an ally of McCarthy and chair of the centrist Main Street Caucus, told CNN that spending cuts were the biggest sticking point in the negotiations.

“We are too far apart on the topline number,” Johnson said earlier Friday, referring to the level of discretionary spending for fiscal year 2024. “McCarthy is holding the line. He knows where the Republican conference is. And the White House does not understand that Washington has a spending problem. “

“The gap on topline numbers is not the only problem, but it’s the biggest problem,” he added.

The South Dakota Republican said that he thought a deal was still possible by the early June deadline, but that “we’re in bad shape.” The president, he said, “needs to decide if he wants a deal or not.”

The standoff over the US debt ceiling has been a “subject of interest” in Biden’s meetings at the G7 summit, his national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday. Biden, he said, was voicing confidence in conversations with his counterparts that negotiators would find a way to avoid default and potentially catastrophic consequences for the global economy.

“Countries want to have a sense of how these negotiations are going to play out. And the president has expressed confidence that he believes that we can drive to an outcome where we do avoid default, and part of the reason that he’s returning home tomorrow, rather than continuing with the rest of the trip, is so that he can help lead the effort to bring it home,” Sullivan said in Hiroshima.

Biden, who left a leaders’ dinner early to be updated by his team, has received continual updates on the negotiations underway in Washington.

Sources familiar with the White House’s thinking acknowledged that part of the reason for the temporary breakdown in talks was that White House negotiators viewed the extent of spending cuts House Republicans were pushing for as unacceptable, though the White House has expressed a willingness to cut some spending.

McCarthy confirmed earlier Friday that talks had paused, saying there was not enough “movement” from the White House and bringing up the issue of spending cuts.

“We’ve got to get movement by the White House. And we don’t have any movement yet,” McCarthy told reporters as he headed into the Capitol.

Asked why he had such an optimistic tone one day before, McCarthy said, “I really felt we were at the location where I could see the path. The White House is just – we can’t be spending more money next year. We have to spend less than the year before. It’s pretty easy.”

McCarthy said he had not spoken to the president and did not answer questions about next steps.

The pause in and of itself doesn’t mean the talks were falling apart. High-stakes talks on Capitol Hill over the years often feature derailments or collapses before negotiators pull things back on track. But it does underscore the challenges ahead to reaching a deal.

Time is of the essence and pressure is building to raise the borrowing limit ahead of June 1, which is the earliest date the Treasury Department says the government could be unable to pay its bills. If the US were to default, it would likely trigger a global economic catastrophe.

Graves had left a brief meeting with negotiators Friday morning saying the situation was “not productive.” At the time, he said he was not sure they would meet again this weekend.

“Until people are willing to have reasonable conversations about how you can actually can move forward and do the right thing we aren’t going to sit here and talk to ourselves. That’s what’s going on,” Graves said.

As talks stalled, a White House official acknowledged that there were “real differences” and “talks will be difficult,” but said the president’s negotiating team is working to reach a “reasonable bipartisan solution.”

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(CNN) — Congressional leaders from both parties emerged from their meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday unable to convey how they’re on a clear path to raise the nation’s borrowing limit and avoid a historic default. And in a sign that Biden will have to be hands-on as debt talks continue, the White House has scrapped part of his upcoming trip abroad.

Time is running short to raise the borrowing limit ahead of June 1, which is the earliest date the Treasury Department says the government could be unable to pay its bills.

Still, the White House released a statement after Tuesday’s meeting saying the president remains optimistic about a path forward toward a bipartisan agreement.

“The President emphasized that while more work remains on a range of difficult issues, he’s optimistic that there is a path to a responsible, bipartisan budget agreement if both sides negotiate in good faith and recognize that neither side will get everything it wants,” the statement said.

After the Oval Office meeting, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters it is “possible” to get a deal by the end of the week but said that he and the White House are still very far apart in negotiations.

McCarthy projected some optimism, saying the White House agreed to direct negotiations between his office and the White House.

“So the structure of how we negotiate has improved. So it now gives you a better opportunity, even though we only have a few days to get it done had we done this back 97 days ago – we’d already have a bill passed,” McCarthy said alongside Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Democratic leaders said everyone in the room agreed that default is not an acceptable option, marking a shift from last week, when McCarthy appeared to refuse to take default off the table.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the leaders agreed that they “need to pass a bipartisan bill with bipartisan support in both chambers” in order to raise the debt limit. He said that McCarthy also agreed the bill needed to be bipartisan.

“We all agreed that over the next few weeks, we have to proceed with the fierce urgency of now in order to make sure we can reach that bipartisan common ground agreement so that we can protect the health and safety and economic well-being of the American people,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said.

Sticking points

Tuesday’s meeting was originally scheduled for last week, but both sides decided to postpone in order to give the staff-level talks space to proceed.

Ahead of the White House meeting McConnell criticized Biden for only scheduling two meetings with McCarthy and other congressional leaders in recent months as the pressure for resolving the debt ceiling crisis has increased.

“The speaker presented his case to the president back in February. House Republicans passed legislation to raise the debt ceiling back in April. But as of mid-May, the President of the United States has found just to two more occasions to sit down and discuss an agreement to preserve the nation’s full faith and credit,” McConnell said Tuesday.

Schumer has tried to drive home the point that Democrats see any possible agreement on spending cuts as a separate negotiation from the debt ceiling talks, which he insists must be increased without conditions.

Aides meeting at the staff-level have been working to identify issues with the highest potential for progress ahead of Tuesday’s meeting in the Oval Office. That includes limits on federal spending, clawing back some unspent pandemic aid and changes to permitting rules for domestic energy production.

It also includes the potential for tougher work requirements for some government aid programs, something Republicans have proposed in the discussions. Biden sounded guardedly open to such a provision Sunday.

“I voted for tougher aid programs (that are) in the law now, but for Medicaid it’s a different story,” he said. “And so I’m waiting to hear what their exact proposal is.”

Other Democrats have balked at the idea of bolstering work requirements.

Jeffries has told his colleagues he won’t accept new work requirements for social safety net programs, according to a person familiar with the matter. And Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said it’s “ridiculous” that work requirements are at the center of debt ceiling negotiations. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed have warned that they would not back a bill imposing new work requirements on Medicaid.

McCarthy, however, has said the issue is a red line.

“Every, every data point shows that it helps people move forward. So the public wants it, both parties want it, the idea that they want to put us into a default because they will not work with us on that is ludicrous to me,” McCarthy said of work requirements.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise on Tuesday acknowledged that there is a chance the bill House Republicans passed to raise the nation’s debt ceiling will not be the final product if negotiations yield a deal both sides can agree to. But he also questioned how seriously Democrats are taking negotiations, saying he hopes Biden comes into the meeting and either says he supports the House GOP plan or has specific proposals as a counter offer.

“The president needs to come with very specific ideas,” Scalise said. “If the President goes into that meeting today and gives more empty rhetoric like he has in the past meetings, that will show he is not serious,” he added.

Prior to the White House meeting, Louisiana Republican Rep. Garret Graves, McCarthy’s top confidant on the debt ceiling, told CNN’s Manu Raju a main issue between both parties is still spending levels, with work requirements for Medicaid emerging as a significant sticking point.

Jeffries has indicated that he believes a deal could include a debt limit increase through 2024 and changes to permitting laws to ease the approval of energy projects. He also thinks there could be some caps on discretionary spending and some Covid funds could be reclaimed.

But Graves on Tuesday emphasized that House Republicans are still not ready to discuss a short-term solution to give the principals more time to negotiate. “I’m not prepared at all, and I don’t think the speaker is, to put anything like that on the table,” he said.

Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, outlined the impact of proposed Republican spending cuts in a new memo Tuesday, warning that if the GOP preserves funding for the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security as they’ve suggested, it could lead to a 30% cut in spending for other federal agencies.

Biden’s upcoming travel abroad

Perhaps the greatest challenge to negotiators is the timeline.

Biden had been scheduled to depart Wednesday for a trip to Japan, Papua New Guinea and Australia. But shortly after Tuesday’s meeting, the White House confirmed the trip will be cut short, canceling the final two legs of what was supposed to be a weeklong trip in the Pacific region. Biden will return to the US on Sunday in “order to be back for meetings with Congressional leaders to ensure that Congress takes action by the deadline to avert default,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Biden is still expected to travel to Japan, where world leader will gather for a Group of 7 meeting.

According to the White House, Biden will “check in” with McCarthy and other top lawmakers this week by phone and meet with them when he returns from his trip to Japan.

McCarthy said Monday a deal needs to be reached by this weekend in order for Congress to vote on it before the June 1 deadline. He was not optimistic that was possible.

“You got to have something by this weekend and we are nowhere near any of that,” he said.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune warned, “If we really are working on a June 1 deadline, then things need to start happening fairly quickly here.”

On Tuesday, McCarthy appeared to caution against the trip.

“Look, the President is the President of the United States. He can make that decision one way or another. But all I know is we got 16 more days to go. I don’t think I would spend eight days somewhere out of the country,” the speaker said. “I think the country wants an American president focused on solving American problems. That’s exactly what the House is doing.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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(CNN) — When President Joe Biden was isolating with Covid in the White House last summer, atop the stack of books on his desk was a 320-page paperback: “JFK in Ireland.”

The last Irish Catholic president visited his ancestral homeland in 1963, five months before his assassination. He told his aides afterwards it was the “best four days of my life.”

Sixty years later, the current Irish Catholic president (Secret Service codename: Celtic) departs Tuesday for his own visit bound to make a similar impression — first to Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and then onto Ireland from Wednesday through Saturday.

Part homecoming, part statecraft and part politics, this week’s trip amounts to a timely intersection of Biden’s deeply felt personal history with his ingrained view of American foreign policy as a force for enduring good.

Departing Washington on Tuesday, Biden described his goal as “making sure the Irish accords and the Windsor Agreement stay in place — keep the peace.”

“Keep your fingers crossed,” he told reporters before boarding Air Force One.

The visit is timed to commemorate the 1998 signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles. The agreement came about with significant American investment, particularly from Democrats like Bill Clinton and Sen. George Mitchell, a legacy Biden is eager to highlight when he stops in Belfast starting Tuesday.

But it will be his personal engagements in the Republic of Ireland later in the week, including stops in County Louth and County Mayo to explore his family roots, that will best capture what Biden himself has described as perhaps his single most defining trait.

“As many of you know, I, like all of you, take pride in my Irish ancestry,” he said during a St. Patrick’s Day luncheon last month. “And as long as I can remember, it’s been sort of part of my soul.”

Described by Ireland’s prime minister last month as “unmistakably a son of Ireland,” Biden has at various moments ascribed his temper, his nostalgic streak, his politics and his humor all to his Irish roots. He quotes poets like William Butler Yeats and Seamus Heaney freely; the most famous passage from Yeats’ “Easter 1916” has appeared no fewer than 12 times in Biden’s public remarks since he took office.

“They think I do it because I’m Irish,” Biden said recently. “I do it because they’re the best poets.”

Biden’s last visit coincided with Brexit vote

Ahead of the trip, the White House distributed an extensive family genealogy stretching as far back as 1803, to the shoemakers and civil engineers and union overseers who would eventually leave Ireland on ships bound for America. Most left during the Irish famine of the 1840s and 1850s on what Biden has called the “coffin ships” because so many of their passengers didn’t survive the passage.

His ancestors’ experiences have left indelible impressions on Biden, whose persona is defined by eternal optimism despite his own experience of profound loss.

“One of my colleagues in the Senate, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once made this simple but profound observation about us Irish: ‘To fail to understand that life is going to knock you down is to fail to understand the Irishness of life,'” he wrote in his 2017 memoir.

Returning to Ireland as president has long been in the cards for Biden, who is also planning to meet with Irish leaders, address Parliament and deliver a nighttime speech in front of St. Muredach’s Cathedral, in the northwest of Ireland, before returning to Washington on Saturday. The White House said Biden’s great-great-great grandfather Edward Blewitt sold 28,000 bricks to the cathedral in 1828 to construct its pillars.

He’ll be joined members of his family for the journey, including his son Hunter and sister Valerie. When he visited as vice president in 2016, he spent six days crisscrossing the island with several grandchildren and his sister, a newly generated family-tree in hand.

By coincidence, Biden was on that visit to Ireland the same day a majority of British voters elected to leave the European Union, a decision he opposed and which posed thorny questions for Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.

As aides set to work planning his visit as president, Brexit’s legacy continued to loom. A dispute over trade rules between the UK and the European Union, to which the Republic of Ireland belongs, tested the Good Friday agreement and its fragile peace.

It was a matter Biden took outsized interest in upon taking office. He warned successive British prime ministers to resolve the dispute before the anniversary — tacitly hinging his entire trip on it. After months of negotiations, the current PM Rishi Sunak struck a deal resolving the dispute in February, though Northern Ireland’s main unionist political party has yet to sign on. Still, the arrangement paved the way for Biden’s visit this month.

Sunak is expected to meet Biden when he arrives, and the two will meet for talks in Belfast on Wednesday.

Biden hopes to use his trip as a reminder of what sustained diplomacy can yield at a moment America’s role abroad is being debated. An isolationist strain among Republicans has led to questions about the durability of Washington’s global leadership. The Good Friday Agreement, brokered by the United States, stands as one of the most lasting examples of US diplomacy from the end of the 20th century.

“President Biden has been talking about liberal internationalism as something that can return, he talks about democracy versus autocracy, all of this kind of stuff. So within that, I think that he wants to see good examples of the rule of law in US foreign policy. And this is a great example of that. This was an achievement,” said Liam Kennedy, director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at the University College Dublin.

“The Good Friday Agreement is certainly one of those things where you can get real bipartisan buy-in in Washington,” Kennedy said. “Believe me, that’s a pretty unusual thing.”

America’s role in Good Friday Agreement

The bloody tensions between Protestant Unionists, who support remaining part of the United Kingdom, and Catholic Irish Nationalists, who support reunification with the Republic, have mostly been left in another era. The Troubles led to more than 3,500 deaths, most of them civilians, and even more casualties.

As a senator, Biden was outspoken in favor of American peacemaking efforts in Northern Ireland. He also opposed extraditing IRA suspects from the US to Britain, arguing the justice system that existed in Northern Ireland at the time wasn’t fair.

In 1988, he told the Irish America magazine in a cover story (headline: “Fiery Joe Biden: White House bound?”) that as president he’d be active in trying to reach a peace.

“If we have a moral obligation in other parts of the world, why in God’s name don’t we have a moral obligation to Ireland? It’s part of our blood. It’s the blood of my blood, bone of my bone,” he said.

A decade later, three-way talks between the US, Ireland and Britain yielded the Good Friday Agreement, which sought to end the bloodshed through a power sharing government between the unionists and nationalists.

Yet that government has functioned only sporadically in the quarter-century since the accord was signed and has been frozen for more than a year after the Democratic Unionists withdrew because of the Brexit trade dispute.

John Finucane, a member of the British Parliament from Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party, said Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland this week would be a “huge help” toward resolving some of the lingering differences.

A lawyer whose own father was murdered by Loyalist paramilitaries in collusion with UK state forces in 1989, Finucane said Biden’s visit was a reminder of the American role in brokering peace.

“It’s no secret that I don’t think we would have had a peace process or certainly a Good Friday Agreement without the involvement of the American administration, and successive American administrations in implementing our peace,” he said. “Joe Biden himself has a very strong track record in supporting our peace process. So I think it is very fitting that he will be coming here next week.”

Still, the threat of violence has never entirely disappeared, a reality made evident when British intelligence services raised the terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland from “substantial” to “severe” in late March.

An operation called “Operation Rondoletto” taking place over Easter weekend ahead of Biden’s visit was set to cost around $8.7 million (£7 million), the police service said, and include motorcycle escort officers, firearms specialists and search specialists.

Asked last month whether the heightened terror level would dissuade him from visiting, however, Biden hardly sounded concerned.

“No, they can’t keep me out,” he said.

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(CNN) — President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Federal Aviation Administration is withdrawing his name from nomination due to “an onslaught of unfounded Republican attacks” on the nominee’s service and experience, a White House official told CNN.

Phillip Washington’s nomination was first announced by the White House last year, but has faced strong criticism from Republican lawmakers over a number of issues, including Washington’s slim aviation credentials and his potential legal entanglements.

The White House respects Washington’s decision to withdraw his name and praised his public service record and qualifications to lead the FAA, the official said.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation was scheduled to vote on Washington’s nomination on Wednesday, but that vote was postponed. A Republican Senate aide told CNN after the postponed vote that “he was pulled because they don’t have the votes to report him out of committee.”

Because Republicans remained unified in their opposition to Washington’s prospective leadership, “his nomination is on life support,” the aide said.

The nomination withdrawal was first reported by Reuters.

Washington, the current CEO of the Denver International Airport, has held leadership roles at municipal transit organizations, including in Denver and Los Angeles, focused on bus and rail lines. He also led the Biden-Harris transition team for the Department of Transportation. Prior to his work in transportation, Washington served in the military for 24 years.

While Washington has worked in transportation-related positions since 2000, he had no experience in the aviation industry prior to joining the Denver airport in 2021 — something that became a major concern among committee members.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Saturday highlighted the need for a confirmed FAA administrator as he condemned the “partisan attacks” on Washington.

“The FAA needs a confirmed Administrator, and Phil Washington’s transportation & military experience made him an excellent nominee. The partisan attacks and procedural obstruction he has faced are undeserved, but I respect his decision to withdraw and am grateful for his service,” Buttigieg said in a tweet.

The White House will work to select a new nominee to lead the FAA, the official said.

“Politics must not hold up confirming an Administrator to lead the FAA, and we will move expeditiously to nominate a new candidate for FAA Administrator. We believe the Senate owes it to the American people to swiftly consider and confirm a leader to this key safety agency,” the official said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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