August 05, 2021: Schumer double dares McConnell on the debt ceiling

Chuck Schumer is about to double-dog dare Mitch McConnell and his members to vote against a debt ceiling increase this fall. Just weeks after the minority leader implored his counterpart to tack a debt ceiling increase on to their party’s massive reconciliation bill — lifting the $28 trillion borrowing cap without any GOP votes — Schumer instead is maneuvering to make Republicans squirm.

The tentative plan: Tack the debt-ceiling hike on to a short-term funding bill designed to avert a government shutdown at the end of September, a move that would require GOP support. The Democratic leader is, in short, betting the GOP will cave rather than risk the blame for destabilizing an already shaky economy. 

And during the 2020 primary season, we had countless conversations with Biden campaign officials who warned that it was crucial to separate the social media conversation about Democratic politics from the conversations happening offline in early states. 

It became a cliche to say that Biden’s unofficial campaign slogan was “Twitter isn’t real life.” While Biden and Bernie haven’t been very far apart on policy, old electoral divisions have repeatedly resurfaced in campaigns this year, and we’ve been having a familiar conversation with folks in Biden world recently.

Raghu Manavalan is the host of POLITICO's Playbook.
Jenny Ament is the senior producer for POLITICO Audio. 
Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.