HOLD THE LINE — To all but the sharpest students of congressional politics, talks over the nation’s debt ceiling might look like a game of chicken. On one side are Republicans intent on pursuing a doomed package of steep spending cuts, and on the other are Democrats insisting on a clean hike to the Treasury’s borrowing limits.

Anyone seeing this week’s Capitol Hill moves that way wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. But all that partisan chest-thumping masks a more important competition — to project as much unity as possible without cracks.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s House GOP took its turn first this week, aiming to force fresh negotiations on the debt by releasing a package of spending cuts, federal benefit limits, and other rollbacks of President Joe Biden’s policy. The president quickly nixed it. The next day, however, House Democrats started nudging Biden to at least sit down with McCarthy, indicating some cracks in the clean-hike-or-bust mentality on their side.

It’s a sign that next week, when House Republicans plan to push their debt bill to a vote, could prove pivotal in Washington’s ongoing drama over how to save the nation from a debt default that risks rattling the nation’s economy.

McCarthy’s job next week will be making passage of his legislation look as smooth as possible, despite evident misgivings within his conference — from conservatives who’ve vowed to never support a debt hike to centrists who take issue with its food aid limits. Assuming full attendance in the House, he’ll only be able to lose four people on the floor.

Democrats’ job will be sticking together in lambasting the GOP plan as a painful decimation of essential government programs, including the president’s student loan relief plan. If more members of Biden’s party greet next week’s vote with a suggestion to restart talks, look for Republicans to leap on it as a sign of cracks in their firmament.

Sure, this entire back-and-forth amounts to a lot of inside-the-Beltway tribalism — the kind of thing campaign ads cite to paint one party or the other as wasting taxpayers’ time. Style can matter as much as substance in politics, however — so don’t be surprised to see both parties work the proverbial refs in the media, either.

When the Portland Trail Blazers pulled themselves back from the brink in the 2003 NBA playoffs, Rasheed Wallace — whose terse eloquence has made it into Nightly before — memorably spent an entire press conference responding to questions with “both teams played hard.”

It was Wallace’s way of trolling the press for painting his team as flailing. And right now, the media has focused far more on the risks McCarthy faces in the debt fight than on those Biden and Chuck Schumer must contend with. If House Republicans can hang together next week, though, Democrats will have to carefully weigh their next move knowing that the GOP has learned to unify after a rocky start.

Both parties are, as Wallace might say, playing hard to show unity on the debt.

Yet the overwhelming likelihood is that the debt debate ends with one perceived winner: Either McCarthy extracts a clearly painful concession (or two, or three) from Democrats, or Biden forces Republicans to overplay their hand with a slim majority and successfully marginalizes them as obstructionist.

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— Biden orders tougher reviews for projects in pollution-scarred areas: President Joe Biden is tightening up environmental approvals for new projects that would add pollution to communities that are already suffering from health threats from their air and water, according to an executive order being issued today. Biden’s new order will direct federal agencies on how to work with communities early in project development timelines and improve data to consider the “cumulative impacts” of environmental and health stressors of an area when weighing new proposals that could affect where to site infrastructure like pipelines, waste incinerators, chemical processing facilities and highways.

— CIA in Congress’ crosshairs over alleged mishandling of sex assault cases: The House intelligence committee is investigating whether the Central Intelligence Agency is mishandling how it responds to sexual assault and harassment in its workforce, according to four people familiar with the matter. At least three female CIA employees have approached the committee since January to tell them that the agency is discouraging women from making sexual misconduct complaints, according to one of the people, attorney Kevin Carroll, who represents the first employee who talked to the committee. He also said the CIA is making it difficult for alleged victims to speak to law enforcement.

— DOJ probing Southwest Airlines holiday flight meltdown: The Justice Department has joined an ongoing Transportation Department probe into Southwest Airlines’ December meltdown where some 16,000 flights were canceled, with regulators examining whether Southwest set schedules it knew it couldn’t properly staff. DOT spokesperson Kerry Arndt said DOT’s focus remains on Southwest’s scheduling practices.

FAITH LESS — Unlike in Republican presidential primaries past, just two candidates — Mike Pence, the former Catholic turned evangelical, and Scott, who speaks of finding a “God Solution” to the country’s racial divide — stand alone in making explicit appeals to evangelical voters. Trump and DeSantis, meanwhile, are relying solely on their reputations as brute-force brawlers in the culture wars. Their success — and the difficulties Pence and Scott are having courting voters, according to recent polls — reflects a major change in the evangelical bloc of the GOP electorate in the Trump era, POLITICO’s Adam Wren, Natalie Allison and Meridith McGraw report.

THREE QUESTIONS WITH… David Urban, a senior adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign who now serves as the managing director for BGR Group, a Washington-based lobbying and communications firm.

What are some of the key policy issues that will shape the Republican primary?

If you look at what current candidates and potential candidates are talking about, everybody seems to have a great deal of overlap in terms of policies: it’s immigration, border security, getting control of spending, the fentanyl crisis on the border … but the thing that jumps out to me immediately is the U.S. position on Ukraine. That’s one of the biggest differences among the candidates.

You’ve seen former President Trump make statements, you saw Gov. DeSantis, although not a candidate yet, stake out his position. And then others, like former Secretary of State Pompeo and Vice President Pence, have said ‘hey, look, we’re for continuing to support Ukraine. It’s not a blank check. But we believe we can support them.’

And maybe Social Security will be an issue. Republicans aren’t obviously looking to end Social Security, but I think there’s been a recognition that Social Security as we know it is not going to be solid in the future … You know, President Trump has said, ‘I’m not putting anything off the table’ and others may say, ‘hey, look, we need to actually look at these fiscal issues.’

What effect might the Trump/DeSantis relationship have on the primary?

You’ve seen the former president really wading back into the 2016 style with nicknames and a very aggressive attack posture, trying to take down Ron DeSantis with ad hominems, as opposed to policy disputes. The former president has labeled him as Ron DeSanctimonious, or Meatball Ron, or whatever name he chooses to use on that day. Trump largely ignores some of the policy successes that DeSantis has made. Hopefully, those kinds of ad hominem attacks won’t devolve further. I think Americans deserve to have a full throated debate on the issues versus just a lot of shouting and name calling.

Which Republican candidate would be most difficult — and easiest — for Biden to run against in the 2024 race?

Whomever the nominee is will be incredibly difficult to run against for President Biden. It’s not necessarily his age … I think it’s his record. Biden was able to fool Americans into thinking that he was a moderate, unifying force, when really, he was progressive, left of Bernie Sanders, in Joe Biden’s clothing. So I think any Republican will have an easier time in 2024 than they did in 2020 running against a Biden-Harris ticket. There’ll be real questions about his viability for the entire term [and] there will be questions about whether Kamala Harris is up to be President of the United States, so I think take your pick.

Tim Scott is a very interesting character, he’s a really nice guy and a persuasive speaker … He’s young, he eviscerates the Democrats’ narrative on race. Chris Christie, would be another knife fighter, Ron DeSantis would do an incredible job … and even if it’s Trump, people say ‘well if it’s Trump versus Biden, he’s going to lose’ and I don’t buy that. People saw Joe Biden as a different person in 2020 than they do now and there’s a lot of buyer’s remorse around America.

DIFFICULT NEIGHBORS — Hungary’s troubled relationship with neighboring Ukraine spiraled again today as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán dismissed the country’s NATO dreams, writes Lili Bayer.

“What?!” the prime minister exclaimed in a Twitter post responding to a POLITICO article on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s declaration in Kyiv on Thursday that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.”

Relations between Budapest and Kyiv are tense. Hungary spent years blocking high-level NATO sessions with Ukrainian officials, ostensibly over concerns about the rights of Hungarian speakers in western Ukraine.

And despite condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion, Hungary has refused to send weapons to aid its neighbor. Senior Hungarian officials, meanwhile, continue to regularly visit Moscow and maintain close ties to the Kremlin. At the same time, Hungary joining Turkey in blocking Sweden’s NATO bid has frustrated Western capitals.

NATO allies — including Hungary — decided back in 2008 that Ukraine would eventually join the alliance. But Kyiv’s path to NATO has stalled, and in September Ukraine’s leadership requested an “accelerated accession” to join. But the issue is highly sensitive.

Most NATO allies — including the U.S. — want to avoid any big moves on the accession process for Ukraine while the war is ongoing.

PRAISE THE NEW GODS — Archaeologists have found new gods in old sculptures. Five reliefs belonging to the Tartessos peoples, a lost civilization that existed around 3,000 years ago in southern Spain, were uncovered recently and have just been displayed for the first time. Two of the reliefs in particular depict women who appear to have been goddesses in the Tartessian pantheon. The reliefs were found within an ancient temple that — for unknown reasons — was sealed and burned to the ground in a Tartessian ritual. Becky Ferreira reports on the reliefs — and what they might tell us about this ancient civilization — for VICE.