Invoke the 14th Amendment

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, passed in the wake of the Civil War and partially dealing with debts incurred in financing the conflict, specifies that “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” Some legal scholars, notably Yale’s Jack Balkin, have argued that this clause renders the debt ceiling unconstitutional, as it threatens the validity of the US’s public debts by creating the possibility of default.

This is hardly a consensus position among constitutional law experts (former conservative federal appeals judge Michael McConnell thinks the debt ceiling is clearly constitutional) but if Biden were to declare he was ignoring the debt ceiling because it’s unconstitutional, it’s not clear that anyone would have legal standing to sue Biden and challenge the decision. That helped encourage a number of political actors, from then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to former President Bill Clinton, to urge Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment during his debt ceiling showdowns.