Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook Deputy Editor Zach Stanton, and it is Friday, May 19th.

Though, host speaker Kevin McCarthy suggested a couple days ago that he wanted to have a debt limit

deal in place by the start of the weekend, as of right now on Friday morning, that does not

seem likely to happen. As a reminder, June 1st has been settled as the potential X-date when the federal

government would default. And if you look at the calendar, you'll see that's just 13 days away.

So, to make it through Congress by June 1st, which means jumping through all sorts of procedural hoops,

negotiators are probably going to need to broker some sort of debt limit compromise in the next couple of days. What happens if the negotiators are probably going to need to broker some sort of debt limit compromise in the next

couple of days. What happens if the negotiators don't reach a deal by the end of the weekend?

Well, my colleagues, Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Schultes have a smart piece up this morning on

basically the three paths forward to raise the debt limit by June 1st. The first path is basically

the current one. Next week, the Senate is in recess, so all the focus is going to be on the House.

And Kevin McCarthy believes it'll take about four days to pass any potential legislation

through the House. Now, that's because back in January, to win the speakership, he promised some disaffected

Republicans that he'd give lawmakers 72 hours to review bills before they had a floor vote. Now,

true, there's nothing in the rulebook that says he has to do that. You know, he could just ignore

that promise. But if he did that, then he's really risking the wrath of his right flank, which he needs in order to maintain his speakership.

Option two is a short punt.

Basically, this would be a bill to raise the debt ceiling for a short amount of time while Congress nails down the details of a bigger deal.

One hurdle on that is that lawmakers in both parties have rejected the idea

of using that sort of fallback option, and it would be hard to rally support for a temporary

remedy if negotiators don't really have a bipartisan deal in sight.

Option three is perhaps the most far-fetched at the moment, and that's the sort of Senate

...