POLITICO Playbook: Why McConnell backed down

HUNTER BIDEN showcased his art to about 200 people at Milk Studios in Hollywood, Calif., The Daily Mail’s Josh Boswell reports. Guests included “World Champion boxer SUGAR RAY LEONARD … Los Angeles Mayor ERIC GARCETTI” — President JOE BIDEN’s pick to be ambassador to India — “and the artist behind BARACK OBAMA’S iconic Hope poster.” Prices ranged between $75k and a half-million dollars. The White House has said that Hunter won’t know who the buyers of his art are — even though he’s talking with potential buyers face-to-face.

BEHIND THE BACKDOWN — DONALD TRUMP and Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.) actually agree on something: Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL backed down Wednesday when he offered Democrats an extension of the debt ceiling until December. (As of early this morning, the two sides hadn’t finalized the deal.)

“McConnell caved,” said Warren.

“Looks like Mitch McConnell is folding to the Democrats, again,” said Trump.

Much of the MSM coverage this morning endorses Warren and Trump’s McConnell-blinked-first narrative.

“With the threat of a default as little as 12 days off,” write NYT’s Jonathan Weisman and Emily Cochrane, McConnell “made a tactical retreat and announced that Republicans would allow Democrats to vote on a short-term extension.”

WAS IT THE FILIBUSTER? McConnell backed down after Democratic threats of nuking the filibuster for the debt ceiling started to become more real. At their Tuesday lunch, Democratic senators discussed how McConnell’s blockade on the debt ceiling was boosting the case of filibuster reformers. Later that day, Biden, generally a skeptic of filibuster reform, said such a change for the debt ceiling was now a “real possibility.”

McConnell took notice. Our friend Manu Raju at CNN reported, “McConnell told his colleagues he’s concerned about pressure on [JOE] MANCHIN and [KYRSTEN] SINEMA to gut [the] filibuster in order to raise [the] debt ceiling, I’m told. He pointed to this as reason why he is floating short-term increase in order to ease pressure on and push Democrats to use reconciliation.”

McConnell himself alluded to how filibuster reform was the key issue at play. “It’s not clear whether the Democratic leaders have wasted two-and-a-half months because they simply cannot govern, or whether they are intentionally playing…