GEOFF BENNETT: Another government funding showdown on Capitol Hill, a shrinking Republican 2024 field, and a critical meeting with China.

Time for a check-in with our Politics Monday team.

That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

It's good to see you both.

So, we have got another government funding deadline.

This latest one is on Friday night.

Speaker Mike Johnson has unveiled this fairly complex two-tiered funding mechanism.

Tam, what's the White House view of it?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: They don't like it.

That is very clear.

Whether the president would ultimately sign it if it made it to his desk, well, that's also not clear.

It's not clear that it'll get to his desk.

And what the president has said is that he's waiting to see essentially what the House can come up with.

The challenge over in the House is that, as with basically every funding bill ever, hard right Republicans are peeling off.

And so Democratic votes would be needed.

And it's uncertain at this point whether Democrats are going to give them those votes that they need.

But the White House is just like, do we really need more cliffs?

This two-tiered system would just mean that there are more chances for government shutdown early next year.

GEOFF BENNETT: Amy, at least seven House Republicans have come out against Speaker Johnson's plan.

But Democrats, according to our Lisa Desjardins, one House Democratic leadership source she spoke to says that they're leaning towards supporting it.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Yes.

Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: And Chuck Schumer said that he was pleased that Johnson has moved away from the far right flank within the House Republican Conference.

Does Johnson have room to maneuver in a way that his predecessor did not?

AMY WALTER: For now, yes.

And there's a sense that he's able to do what McCarthy did and then got punished for it, which is use Democratic votes to actually get this short-term funding over the finish line.

But how many more times will they allow him to do this is the question?

Because, as Tam pointed out, all this does is kick this down the road until January and February.

Now, January and February are also in the middle of an election year.

We will be in the middle of presidential primaries.

Theoretically, once we get into an election year, folks want a little more certainty.

But what we have seen thus far from Republicans in the House is, a certain group of them, they are more than willing to do the sorts of things that previous Republicans in an election year would never allow, something like a government shutdown or at least a so-called fiscal cliff situation happening so close to an election.

GEOFF BENNETT: You mentioned the 2024 race.

Senator Tim Scott, as you both know, suspended his campaign.

Here's what he said last night on FOX: SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC), Presidential Candidate: I love America more today than I did on May 22.

But when I go back to Iowa, it will not be as a presidential candidate.

I am suspending my campaign.

I think the voters, who are the most remarkable people on the planet, have been really clear that they're telling me, not now, Tim.

GEOFF BENNETT: So that announcement reportedly took a number of his aides and donors by surprise.

Tam, it's fairly clear that there's no appetite among the Trump base for Senator Scott's so-called happy warrior strategy.

TAMARA KEITH: Well, I mean, there's no appetite among the Trump base for anyone that isn't Trump.

But, in fact, yes, Senator Scott brought this optimistic message at a time when it just doesn't seem like a lot of Republican base voters are looking for optimism.

And he also is someone who is an evangelical Christian, wore his religion his sleeve, which in past cycles would have been really helpful in a place like Iowa.

But Senator Scott just wasn't able to gain any traction.

And part of that is just that no one has been able to gain any traction against Trump.

And there is some wisdom in getting out early if you want to have a political future.

And he does seem like someone who may want to run for president again down the line or certainly hasn't said anything that would make him unattractive as a vice presidential pick.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk about Nikki Haley, because she is poaching donors from her Republican rivals.

Her team just announced a $10 million ad buy in Iowa and New Hampshire to give her an advantage over Ron DeSantis.

Is she the Trump alternative?

Is that clear yet?

AMY WALTER: Well, she's in second place now in New Hampshire, in her home state of South Carolina.

Again, this is before Tim Scott dropped out, but he was so low in the polls that he wasn't taking much of the vote anyway.

And then, in Iowa, she's tied for second with Ron DeSantis.

So she can make her -- a pretty good case that she is the person that people who want to vote for someone other than Donald Trump should rally around.

Her challenge right now is that she has been unable to get voters who like Donald Trump, but are maybe looking for an alternative, on her team.

Ron DeSantis has been better able to pick off some of those voters.

What she's been able to do is really rally around, I would call them maybe the old-style Republicans, many of whom don't want to see Trump as the nominee, many of whom who would like to maybe go back to the previous types of nominees in the Reagan-Bush sort of era.

So she's been able to straddle in her own political life the Trump and establishment sort of relationship.

But in the primary thus far, she's not been able to win over enough of those Trump voters.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Tam, we should say that you were in San Francisco tonight to cover this week's major meeting between President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

The White House is fairly clear there's no major announcements expected, no deliverables.

What's the goal for this summit?

I guess they're not using the word summit.

It's more of a meeting between the two leaders.

What's the goal?

TAMARA KEITH: I think they are now using the word summit.

It's about a half-day of meetings, and the goal is essentially to reopen communications.

It's kind of amazing to think about this, but President Biden and President Xi have not spoken in a year.

And during that year, there was the balloon, the spy balloon, that the U.S. shot down over the ocean after it flew across America or floated across America.

And in a private fund-raiser, President Biden referred to President Xi as a dictator.

Things have been tense.

And, essentially, what the White House is saying is that the goal here is to reduce those tensions, resume conversation, so that they can have intense diplomacy about intense competition to avoid that tipping into conflict, which no one wants.

GEOFF BENNETT: And they're hoping to counter China as an economic competitor, even though they might not say that publicly, in many ways to shore up the U.S. economy.

And looking at the economic numbers on paper, unemployment, historic lows, you have got rising wages, a strong economic growth, but none of that seems to really be translating into President Biden's poll numbers.

Why is that?

AMY WALTER: It does not, in part because, if you ask voters what is their number one concern, it's rising prices.

And even as they say, I'm glad that I don't have to worry about finding a job, or maybe I even got a little bump in my salary, it's not translating to my day-to-day costs.

So the challenge that Biden has is, what's really important to people at this moment in time when they think about the economy, it's the cost of stuff.

Now, this broader conversation about China, though, is important, especially since, on some of the issues like tariffs, this is a president who is keeping in line with former President Trump about sort of keeping pressure on China, focusing a lot on bringing manufacturing and other jobs, keeping them in the United States.

GEOFF BENNETT: Amy Walter and Tamara Keith, thanks, as always.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.