Announcer this is cnn breaking news. Youre live in the cnn newsroom. Im jim acosta in washington, a very late Saturday Night on Memorial Day Weekend but were here for good reason. Were here in a crucial moment on debt ceiling talks. Multiple sources tell cnn that the white house and House Republican leaders have reach an agreement in principle, we should note in principle on raising the nations debt ceiling. Just ten minutes from now House SpeakerKevin Mccarthy will address reporters were told, and then at the bottom of the hour Republican Leaders will brief their fellow colleagues in the gop conference on the outlines of this deal. The briefing comes after a phone call earlier this evening between mccarthy and President Biden, and cnns Priscilla Alvarez is at the white house for us. Priscilla and manu raju still with us up on capitol hill. Late night, guys. Priscilla, what can you tell us . Reporter jim, im hearing from a source close to negotiations yes House Speaker mccarthy have an agreement in principle and working on finalizing a bill text and term sheet. For now a few details here. The bill keeps nondefense spending roughly flat with current fiscal 2023 levels in 2024. Also looking through here Work Requirements. The president it says according to the source fought policies that would have taken away health care and pushed people into poverty. No changes to medicaid. And were also learning that the president protected the inflation reduction act. This is something that has been critical for the white house is protecting those legislative accomplishments by the president. So were learning slowly some of the details that have been reached in this agreement, again, from a source familiar with the negotiations. And, jim, well bring that to you as we delve a little deeper into these details. But, look, this has been the product of a lot of work especially over the last 24 hours. Over the course of the day we were in touch with white house officials who were expressing optimism about the direction of these talks. Even last night President Biden himself on his way to camp david saying that they were, quote, very close to a deal. So were starting to see that take shape. Now, the timing is critical. Just yesterday right before President Biden went to camp david we also learned from the Treasury Secretary that firm june 5th date when nation would no longer be able to meet its obligations and in other words run out of cash. So this has been a really critical 24hour time frame for this white house as they worked with hill negotiators, and as the president stayed engaged from camp david as sources have told us. So, again, learning more and more about these details, and im sure manu will have more from the House Speaker as well soon. Im sure he will. Lets go to manu raju up on capitol hill. Manu, the House Speaker is supposed to brief reporters in about seven minutes from now. What can you tell us from your end of things . Manu, it sounds as though and im just basing this on my white house reporting days some of what priscilla laid out is a bit of the Talking Points on the democratic side maybe allay some of the fears and concerns of the House Democratic caucus too much might have been given away in this negotiating process, and i suspect Kevin Mccarthy will have similar things to say from the republican viewpoint to sort of settle things down in his conference. What more can you tell us . Reporter yeah, certainly pulling the white house spin on this agreement. Just to walk through a little bit of it in this fact sheet the white house put out here saying they have agreed to roll back domestic spending levels to the prior year. So currently the 2024 year. Theyre going to go back to 2023 according to this agreement. This will cause some concerns on the right. A lot of folks on the right want further going down to 2022. The white house didnt want to go down at all. They wanted a current spending freeze, so the white house had to concede to that point, so that was a big concession there. Also may made the case they prevented Work Requirements as being part of the medicaid program. Medicaid thats people with low income getting insurance. It appears they may agreed to new Work Requirements for other programs including food stamps and temporary assistance for needy family. It doesnt explicitly say that in the White House Fact Sheet but it seems to suggest that, so were going to have dive deeper whether they conceded to republicans on that point. They argued they didnt agree, that was part of the republican bill to raise the debt ceiling that passed the house in april. Theyre saying that is not part of this bill, but also said the president protected the inflation reduction act. Of course that was a signature law passed in last congress. Republicans tried to go after that. Parts of that bill that law is part of their debt ceiling bill. Theyre uarguing in this white house release they were able to fend off that republican effort. Theyre talking this deal would increase the debt limit for two years. That is an important part of this because the republicans had hoped for just one year. That was what they proposed initially in the house bill. They wanted to fight this again in 2024. The white house absolutely did not want to fight it again in 2024. Thats why they conceded on so many other grounds for the republicans. They didnt even want to have a negotiation to begin with. They wanted a clean debt ceiling increase, no conditions whatsoever. The white house was forced to do a negotiation, had to give a lot to republicans in order to do a twoyear debt limit increase, getting it through the 2024 again until theres either a new president or joe biden is reelected next. That is going to be a Sticking Point for republicans who want to fight this next year. Mccarthy will come out in a matter of minutes and lay out why he believes this is best deal they can reach now and argue why they were forced into this position to cut spending, l deal, he will tout that. And he will tout that to his members, but, again, well have to see more of the details here and then they have to sell it to the members who actually have to vote for this if it were to become law. Right, both sides are going to have to claim victory tonight, manu, for this process to move forward. Lets talk about this with david g gergen, Catherine Rampell. You said we were on the virginia of something and you were absolutely right. And i suspect as manu was indicating a few moments ago both sides are going to have to claim victory for hope of moving forward. Both sides are going to have to feel like they got something out of this. I think thats absolutely right. I must tell you in the first Coming Out Of The Box here and looking at what we know so far, ive been surprised that the democrats are doing better than what we expected in these negotiations. Just to go over a couple of things, jim, theyre not real cuts with that. Youre protecting what you have, and military and veterans will also be protect. In fact, they could get some increases. Extending this for two years is a real gift to the president. Because if this agreement is on for two years he doesnt have to worry about this politically, in the run up to the election, you know, just a few months before to have a major crisis over this issue before the stock market and everything goes to pieces could be a catastrophic loss for him. If they get a twoyear extension, which it sounds like they have, the republicans i think conceded something to the democrats i would not have expected. And it does seem like on the Work Requirements, again, the president is trying to protect trying very hard to protect what he has, the programs he has. And for most part hes doing all right. The Work Requirements thing may go in his direction. Bottom line, we still dont know. There are a lot of ends and buts. Theres a lot were going to learn at 9 10 hopefully. But the sense i have of it is im surprised that this is more to the president s liking than a lot of his members are going to feel it should be. Yeah. And Catherine Rampell there are items theyre pointing to, another being they protected the inflation reduction act, which is another big part of President Bidens legacy, one of his big legislative achievements. To davids point about extending this out to 2025, that is thats a major win for the u. S. Economy is it not, to not have to go through this process smackdab in the midof the 2024 election cycle. Yes. Far more than this being a win for the president , i agree this is a win for the Global Economy and the Global Financial system given the fact that we are toying with default today when we are far enough away from an election where in Theory Politicians should be prioritizing Policy Outcomes and not what guides the polls. Imagine how much more irrational these debates would be in the leadup to an election . Thats what really terrifies me, that if they were threatening to essentially blow up the Global Economy unless there were major concessions, some sort of ransom paid next year, i dont know what it would take for either side or for that matter both sides to claim victory and to walk away and say, okay, were happy with the deal that we got. So absolutely very good thing that the debt limit has been extended or will Knock On Wood we think will be extended for the next couple of years. Ideally i think we should get rid of it altogether, but thats a separate issue. I would mention, though, based on some of the reporting not all Reduction Act Measures have been protected. Some reporting suggests some of the funding for the irs has been clawed back or will be clawed back. I had heard something catherine, i hate to do this to you. Ive got to break in because Speaker Mccarthy is at the microphones. After weeks of negotiations we have come to an agreement in principle. We still have a lot of work to do, but i believe this is an agreement in principle thats worthy of the american people. It has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce, rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes, no new government programs. Theres a lot more within the bill. We still have more work to do tonight to finish all the writing of it. I do want to take a moment, though, i do want to thank Garret Graves and patrick mcenry for all their work on this and all the work well tone to do tonight. I know you have a lot of questions. Im not going to take them tonight out of respect i want to brief our members about where we currently are. I expect to finish the writing of the bill, checking with the white house, and speaking to the president again tomorrow afternoon, and then posting the text of it tomorrow and then be voting on it on wednesday. But thank you for your time, and i think this is very worthy of the American Public. And that was the House SpeakerKevin Mccarthy laying out that he believes the House Republican conference and the white house, President Biden of course have reached a tentative debt limit deal. And we were just talking about the details of this a few moments ago. It would extend the debt limit into 2025 so the country doesnt have to go through all this again during a president ial election cycle. Catherine rampell, let me go back to you. As we were expecting he was touting portions of of this deal that are going to be favorable for him and getting this through his republican conference. What was your sense of what you just heard there . Reporter i thought it was interesting that he didnt give us many of the details. Obviously we all want to know whats actually in this tentative agreement because the details do matter not only in terms of their effects on the u. S. Economy, on people who depend on various forms of government services, all of that matters. You know, if there are tighter Work Requirements for food stamps, snap, thats relevant information for the American Public to know. But also because it matters for forecasting the likelihood this will actually get through the house. Again, i keep coming back to the fact that there is a large contingent of the republican conference that has said the bill that was passed before is the floor, not the ceiling on what they are demanding. And clearly not only has biden made some concessions but mccarthy has made significant concessions relative to that bill that was already passed. So without knowing, you know, the meat of this agreement, its very hard to know whether it is likely to get through the house. And if it doesnt get if republicans are not all onboard, is it appealing enough to some democrats to supply votes . And whats the downstream fallout from that . So he didnt say a lot. The fact that he didnt say a lot suggests to me that we have a lot to learn, and we need to figure out whats in this deal, how likely itll be to get through, and what it means for the American Public. Yeah, we might not be Out Of The Woods yet. Were not Out Of The Woods yet. And i dont know, is manu raju back with us . Not yet. There he is. Manu, one of things that stood out to me from Speaker Mccarthys comments is he said theyll be voting on this on wednesday, not tuesday. I think there was an expectation we might see a vote on tuesday. I mean that was optimistic thinking. But i would imagine for now the markets are going to be fairly calm, one would think, on tuesday. So perhaps they think they bought themselves a little extra time to get this done on wednesday, or do you just have to wait for everybody to get back from their Memorial Day Activities and schedule the vote on wednesday . Well, the speaker promised his members as part of his deal to become speaker he would give them 72 hours to reveal any legislative text that is revealed. And once its unveiled they cant vote within 72 hours according to the deal he cut in order to become speaker. That is the situation here. He said theyre going to release the bill text tomorrow. Thered been some expectation they could get it done today. They wanted the bill text out today, which is why they hoped the 72 hours would expire on tuesday and they could have a vote on tuesday. But now the bill text is not going to be out until tomorrow, that means they cant vote until wednesday at the earliest, which will push things even closer to the default deadline. Now, the question will be whether hell have the votes to get it through his chamber by wednesday. He would not say in that very brief statement whether or not he would take any questions, so its unclear if hes got his members onboard, which is why hes briefing his members, but that is going to be his challenge. The other challenge is lets assume they get the votes in the house. The House Republicans are expecting a majority of their conference will support it. Well see if that actually happens. Well see how Many Democrats help to defray those republican defections and push it through it chamber. Thats another question. The other question, how long does it take to get through the United States senate . The senate can take up to a week to get legislation done. Any member could slow down the process and there are ways to object. If there are some members not happy with this deal, and weve already heard some griping from some conservative senators who did not like some supports of this bill, how are they going to respond when theyve been shutout of this process, not really had a chance to weigh in, will they slow down the process as were staring at the prospects of a default . Those are all real questions which is why typically Something Like this needs to be hammered out over months of time and take weeks through the house and senate. Theyre trying to do this in a matter of days which is why its so complicated and every hour is so significant. Now theyve got to finish the writing of the text and count the votes. The next two big hurdles ahead. Manu, thanks for all the hard work today. David gergen, your sense from what the speaker said. I guess he kept it brief. I guess thats the safer way to go. He kept it brief. I think he gave himself some running room with his cot squs made some points. Listen, it sounded like he got the twoyear extension to 2025 and how long this deal would last. Thats a major, major victory for the white house those two years. Theres no new major taxes according to mccarthy. Theres also worker protection. From bidens Point Of View theyre not imposing a whole new series of worker reduction things, saying theyre going to put people on food stamps. Mccarthy argued first thing he said was the bill has, quote, historic restrictions in spending historic reductions in spending. Well have to wait and see what that is, but if what we see coming out of all all together is that the spending leve