american public should be outraged by the standoff. it is something we seem to go through time and time again. this is about money that has already been spent. this is not about what s going down the pike in the future. this is not about joe biden s spending plan, joe biden s infrastructure plan. this is about the full faith and credit of the united states. most people when they spend money, bill comes and then they decide they ought to pay the bill. if they want to play games, they ll get in trouble. and what s going on now is that the same old, same old political games are being played with republicans saying, i don t want any part of this. i am not going to be nice and say let s just get this done. i am going to put this on the democrats back. even though they re talking about spending that they had approved in the past. and even though when donald trump was president the debt ceiling was raised, i believe, three times. so, you know, it s a game. you can only hope they don t go
concerns we ve heard from white house officials on this is not just what we were talking about, which is that if you get a social security check in the mail you may not receive that. a member of the military, you may not get your paycheck. if you have a child tax credit you may not receive that. it s also the concerns about pandemic relief. about the u.s. credit rating. but also it s the unpredictability, wolf, because it s not something that has ever happened before. so that is the concern that we hear from top treasury officials is that, yes, you heard the treasury secretary say october 18th. that s the date when they believe the u.s. government is going to run out of the money to pay its bills. but it s not a firm date. there s a lot of fluidity around it. could happen before then. they re not sure what that s going to look like and how much it would affect things. that s one of the big concerns the white house has here is what it would actually mean because they can t really tell y
that s because republicans did vote to raise the debt limit when donald trump was in office. they got the support of democrats at that time. now that is what they are asking republicans to do here. help democrats do that. but senate former senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, now senate minority leader said in a letter to the president today that no republicans are going to vote for that saying that democrats are going to have to do it on their own. they are saying they need to use that process known as reconciliation. that s where only democrats would vote to support it but democratic leaders are saying that s a long, complicated process. they don t have time for that and they are trying to up the pressure on republicans to help them vote to increase the nation s borrowing limit. so what happens between now and two weeks from now, october 18th? that s the deadline. it s two weeks from today. the president is warning that you are going to see effects before that because techni
platforms, including instagram and whatsapp as the company comes under fire over whistleblower allegations that it allows hate and misinformation to proliferate. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. let s get straight to the white house. our chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins is standing by. president biden said he can t guarantee that the debt ceiling will be raised in the next two weeks. so what s at stake right now? wolf, the president also described it as this self-inflicted wound that would send the u.s. economy off a cliff if this happens. two weeks from today when the u.s. is set to run out of money essentially to pay its bills. that would affect things like social security checks, payments for u.s. military members, those child tax credits, all of these financial obligations that the u.s. has. that would all be at stake if
over the fiscal cliff because there will be suffer if they do. people s social security checks will not come, military benefits will not come. the stock market could tank. and on and on and on. so, you know, i think they just need to get on with it in whatever way they can and hold their noses and do it. for all practical purposes, president biden s entire domestic agenda is still very much on the line after all the chaos of last week. are democrats any closer to bridging the huge divides within the democratic party? it doesn t sound like it from all of manu s reporting on the hill. it sounds like, you know, priscilla jayapal is saying this isn t enough money for us, 1.5 is not enough. and so she s look, i think they are far apart. nancy pelosi is saying, look, we need to come together because the president of the united states is telling us to come together. and the point that joe biden