House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., speaks with members of the press about debt limit negotiations Saturday, May 27, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have been working the phones in an intense push to sell Congress on the 99-page bill that would suspend the nation's debt limit through 2025 to avoid a federal default while limiting government spending.

FILE - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy of Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., listen as President Joe Biden speaks before a meeting to discuss the debt limit in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci, File)

The Biden administration is racing to strike a deal with Republicans as the nation careens toward a potentially catastrophic debt default if the government fails to increase the borrowing limit, now at $31 trillion, to keep paying the nation’s bills.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy of Calif., left, and Vice President Kamala Harris listen as President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with Congressional leaders in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, May 16, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)

Crucial debt ceiling negotiations are still far from success, but a deal is possible by the end of the week, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said after a brief meeting Tuesday with President Joe Biden and other congressional leaders.

U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson appears on “Chicago Tonight” on May 4, 2023. (WTTW News)

Freshman U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, who succeeded longtime U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush in Illinois’ 1st Congressional District, said the debt ceiling debate has already gone on too long and threatens the standing of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and partially redacted by the source, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. (Department of Justice via AP, File)
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Top lawmakers, including Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had for months been asking the Justice Department to provide access to the documents — or at least an assessment of what was in them — so that Congress could gauge the potential national security harm.

Pictured is a transgender rights protest outside of the White House in Washington in 2018. (Sarah Silbiger / The New York Times / Redux via CNN)

In a presidential proclamation on Thursday and a subsequent statement on Friday, Biden acknowledged “a wave of discriminatory state laws” aimed at trans Americans, squarely blaming “MAGA extremists” for “advancing hundreds of hateful and extreme state laws that target transgender kids and their families.”

President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington, as Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., listen. (Jacquelyn Martin, Pool, File)

The deficit reduction goal is significantly higher than the $2 trillion that Biden had promised in his State of the Union address last month. It also is a sharp contrast with House Republicans, who have called for a path to a balanced budget but have yet to offer a blueprint.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., speaks as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 19, 2022. (AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin, File)

“Ever since my final falling-out with the GOP, on the day of the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol by Donald Trump’s followers, I have wanted to tell the inside story of how my party and also my faith have been hijacked by extremists who represent a real danger to our democracy,” Kinzinger said in a statement.

President Joe Biden delivers his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite)

President Joe Biden checked those boxes, and a few more, during his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. In part, he seemed to be laying the foundation to run for a second term. “We’ve been sent here to finish the job,” he said.

President Joe Biden delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, March 1, 2022, in Washington. (Jim Lo Scalzo / Pool via AP, File)

His speech before a politically divided Congress comes as the nation struggles to make sense of confounding cross-currents at home and abroad — economic uncertainty, a wearying war in Ukraine, growing tensions with China among them — and warily sizes up Biden’s fitness for a likely reelection bid.

The Treasury Department is seen near sunset in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. (AP Photo / Jon Elswick)

The Treasury Department said in a letter to congressional leaders it has started taking “extraordinary measures” as the government has run up against its legal borrowing capacity of $31.381 trillion. An artificially imposed cap, the debt ceiling has been increased roughly 80 times since the 1960s.

(benscripps / Pixabay)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen formally put Congress on notice last week that the agency will have to start taking "extraordinary measures" after the US reaches its $31.4 trillion debt limit on Thursday.

Newly elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., walks to his office from the chamber after a contentious battle to lead the GOP majority in the 118th Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023. (AP Photo / Matt Rourke)

Lawmakers no longer have to walk through metal detectors before gaining access to the House floor. And any time they do vote, they will have to do so in person — no more voting by proxy from home. Those are just some of the changes.

Dean of the House Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., swears in Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as House Speaker on the House floor at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, early Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023. (AP Photo / Andrew Harnik)

Eager to confront President Joe Biden and the Democrats, Kevin McCarthy promised subpoenas and investigations. “Now the hard work begins," the California Republican declared.

Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo / Julio Cortez, File)

More than 930 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the siege on Jan. 6, 2021, and the tally increases by the week. Hundreds more people remain at large on the second anniversary of the unprecedented assault that was fueled by lies that the 2020 election was stolen.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, from left, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., talk to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 13, 2022. (AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Pressure was building as GOP party leader Kevin McCarthy lost a seventh, eighth and historic ninth round of voting, tying the number it took the last time this happened, 100 years ago, in a prolonged fight to choose a speaker in a disputed election.