Fri Oct 11, 2013 AT 6:00 AM EDT
President Obama and House Republican leaders held extended talks Thursday as both sides groped to find a way out of an impending federal debt default, reports Politico. House Republicans floated a proposal to increase the debt ceiling for six weeks with no preconditions early in the day, but Senate Democrats quickly rejected it, according to the Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Of the sit-down, National Journal’s Michael Hirsh opined that both sides just “blinked.”