I'm confident that we'll get the agreement on the budget that America will not default.

And every leader in the room understands the consequences that we failed to pay our bills.

We're going to come together because there's no alternative to do the right thing for the country.

We have to move on.

Those were President Biden's comments on the debt-sealing negotiations just before he took off for the G7 summit in Japan.

We'll have the very latest on the budget talks and the president's trip overseas.

He has arrived.

Good morning and welcome to way too early on this Thursday, May 18th. I'm

Jonathan Lemire because right now these are indeed live pictures from Hiroshima, Japan, where

President Biden is meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Kashita ahead of their bilateral meeting.

G7 leaders are gathering there where they will likely focus on the war in Ukraine

and tensions in Asia. The president, of course, had announced that he was cutting short his

plan trip to the Pacific, no longer visiting Papua New Guinea or Australia in order to get

back to Washington on Sunday to continue those debt-sealing negotiations.

And we will bring you live reports from Japan as they happen all morning long.

President overseas today. And now we turn to some new polling here at home that shows

the president would defeat Donald Trump in a 2024 matchup and even by a wider margin than he did in 2020.

In the latest WPA Intelligence Survey, which was shared with the New York Post,

Biden holds a seven-point lead over Trump among registered voters, 47% to 40%.

For comparison, Biden beat Trump by four and a half percentage points in the 2020 popular vote.

The poll also shows both candidates with favorability ratings underwater. Just 39% say they have a

favorable view of Biden, while 54% view him unfavorably. Trump, though, isn't even worse standing, with just 32%

...