Lame Ducks, Black Swans, and the 2026 Midterm Elections

With the 2026 U.S. midterm elections just weeks away, Rebecca Patterson and Veda Partners Cofounder Henrietta Treyz discuss an impending confrontation over the debt ceiling in the lame-duck session. They warn that a 2011-style standoff could unfold if political brinkmanship and a lack of serious effort to stabilize the country’s debt trajectory continue.

Host:

Rebecca Patterson, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Guest:

Henrietta Treyz, Co-Founder and Director of Economic Policy, Veda

Mentioned on the Episode:

“Direct Government Payments to U.S. Farm Producers, 2022–26F,” Economic Research Service USDA

Anton Korinek, Charles I. Jones, Szymon Sacher, Tess Cotter, and Peter McCrory, “Economic Scenarios for Transformative AI,” The Anthropic Institute

Pavan Acharya and Catherine Allen, “Here’s Why Republicans Are Worrying About High Gas Prices Ahead of the Midterms,” Politico

Want to keep up with The Spillover? Sign up to receive an email alert when new episodes are released.

The Spillover is a production of the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the hosts and guests, not of the Council, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.