 We're now just eight days from falling off the fiscal cliff and obviously it takes time to have any agreement get through Congress. So realistically for these negotiators, what's the deadline? How much time did they have left? Well, Janet Yellen is setting the deadline for us in terms of the so-called ex-date. That is the date by which the United States really runs out of money to pay the nation's bills. She has said that is going to be at the start of June. She's not been very specific about it, but I just want to bring viewers' attention to a simple fact and that is that the ex-date doesn't really exist. That is, there's nothing in law or the Constitution or any other place where you can find a definition for when the United States runs out of money. In 1985 Treasury Secretary Jim Baker faced with similar kind of circumstance where there was no debt ceiling increase. What he did, he raided the Social Security Trust Fund to keep paying the bills. Now I'm not suggesting that by any means. I just want to make sure that people understand that there is no necessary date by which we run out of money. That's an interesting point. Yellen has said that she does not want to get into a process of prioritizing what bills Treasury pays though she admitted today that there are some difficult choices ahead and on that point, on the substance of these negotiations, Robert, what do both sides need to concede on? Where do you see an agreement between Republicans and Democrats? Boris, I don't see an agreement. That's one of the big problems here because you've got the right-wing MAGA Republicans who are saying to McCarthy, we're not going to go along with anything that is in any way to compromise. We want to really push the Democrats to the wall, yet you have a lot of Democrats who are saying, we don't want to cut spending. We're not going to put more work requirements. And I say more because there are a lot of work requirements on welfare and on benefits right now. And so how do you get a majority of the House to agree to any kind of a bill? It's almost impossible to conceive of doing it, particularly if you have to do it, if you believe that you've got to do it in the next week. I mean, Kevin McCarthy is talking about trying to do it today because you have the big Memorial Day weekend coming up and a lot of the House is basically leaving tomorrow. So, sir, are you saying a default is likely? Do you think the U.S. is going to fall off the fiscal cliff? No, I would predict what's going to happen is that the United States is going to continue to pay its bills, that there's not going to be a default, that the Biden administration is going to continue to threaten that there is going to be a next date, that we are very, very close to not being able to afford to pay the bills, but we'll just keep on going as we are. The can will be kicked down the road for quite some time. And it could even be argued. Now, the Biden administration has not yet argued this, but it could even be argued that the Constitution, and that is the article, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, section four, says that the debt shall be respected. There is no way that the validity of the public debt is going to be called into the question, and put rest on that and say that Joe Biden has a constitutional responsibility, given his oath of office, to respect the Constitution and pay the nation's bills and protect the full faith and credit of the Constitution and the United States. That idea has certainly been kicked around by certain scholars. However, our sourcing at the White House indicates that it is not something the Biden administration is eager to do. Robert Reich, we appreciate your perspective. Thanks for joining us.