I'm Ari Melburgh, and we are reporting live from somewhere, as the saying goes, specifically

Washington. Congress under new management, after the bruising fight to elect Speaker McCarthy,

and for all the talk among GOP hardliners about how that clash, remember they said that would

really change things. It would upend the D.C. games or usher in a more accountable, less swampy

leadership. That's what they said.

Well, tonight for top Republicans, I can tell you it's business as usual. The same playbook

the Republican Party used during the last time the Democrats were in the White House and they had

the Congress. It's the brinksmanship that can rattle the economy, and some conservatives argue

actually hurts them too that it drags down

the GOP in the long run. I'm talking about another threat to exploit the financial rules and

govern by ransom. The story involves some Beltway jargon that you've probably heard before,

the once routine process where Congress confirms the spending that it's already passed,

raising the debt ceiling.

Now, Republicans, they still do that when they control the White House. They did it three times without much fuss, as the Post reported under Trump. Then they flip around and, claiming

principle, they'll threaten not to raise the roof if they then lose the White House.

Q. Ted Cruz.

The rules of the Republican Conference provide not that we will never raise the debt ceiling.

It is not my position that we will never raise the debt ceiling.

Rather, what the rules say is we will use the debt ceiling as leverage.

Aha. Ted Cruz admitting it's about leverage.

That means just the power that comes from threatening to actually crash the economy.

And these Republicans think that they have a credible threat that instead of raising the roof

...