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As Washington struggles to reach a debt ceiling deal with little more than a week until potential default, a key hangup in the negotiations is turning out to be -- "work requirements." A long-sought effort by Republicans to impose stricter conditions on recipients of Medicaid and other federal assistance programs is now front-and-center in the debt ceiling standoff. (Hutzler, Scott, and Ferris, 5/23)

Democratic and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are starting to temper expectations among their members about what a final debt ceiling deal could look like, becoming more explicit in acknowledging that neither side will get everything it wants. (Brooks and Folley, 5/24)

A judge in Boston has ordered a hearing next week on one of the key arguments that President Joe Biden has the legal authority to ignore the debt limit statute and continue to pay the federal government’s bills. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns set a May 31 hearing on a lawsuit filed by a federal workers union contending that the 14th Amendment empowers Biden and other officials to sidestep the standoff with Congress that has threatened a potential default. (Gerstein, 5/23)

A significant majority of Americans say they believe President Biden's mental fitness is a real concern they have about his ability to be president, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. Respondents said so by a 62%-to-36% margin, rather than dismissing it as simply being a campaign strategy used by his opponents. Biden did, however, actually see a slight increase in his approval rating to 45%, up 4 points from last month. That indicates there will likely be a significant number of people who believe there are serious concerns about Biden's mental fitness but will vote for him anyway. (Mountanaro, 5/23)

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican presidential candidate who made a fortune in biotech, once was involved in a significant investment in a biotech company run by disgraced investor Martin Shkreli. Shkreli, the oft-described “pharma bro” who went to prison for four years for committing securities fraud and securities fraud conspiracy after he gained notoriety for dramatically raising the cost of a life-saving antiparasitic drug, said in a YouTube video in mid-April that Ramaswamy was at one point his “biggest investor” and called him “a friend.” (Lippman, 5/23)