Global Courant 2023-05-21 23:57:44
WASHINGTON — After speaking by phone with President Joe Biden on Sunday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said they agreed to meet in person Monday afternoon to work on a deal on lifting the debt ceiling.
McCarthy and Biden discussed the debt ceiling on a phone call Sunday as the president flew back from the G-7 summit in Japan on Air Force One after negotiations between senior White House aides and House Republicans failed last week to break an impasse.
“I think my conversation with the president was productive,” McCarthy told NBC News after their call, adding that the president had requested a face-to-face meeting on Monday and he accepted the offer.
“I think we can solve some of these problems,” McCarthy said. “But I have been very clear with him from the beginning: we have to spend less money than last year.”
McCarthy said both sides are “still split,” but he and the president had decided on their call to get their negotiators back together.
“Let them brief the president, let him get some sleep. And he wanted to meet in person tomorrow, I agreed to that, we would do that sometime in the afternoon,” he said. “Time is of the essence.”
A White House official confirmed the upcoming Monday meeting between Biden and McCarthy, saying their staff will also meet again Sunday night at 6 p.m. to discuss remaining issues.
McCarthy praised White House negotiators for participating in “very professional” discussions.
“I have great respect for the individuals on the president’s team,” he said. “They are smart, they are eloquent, they know exactly what they are doing. We may disagree philosophically, but we respect each other because we come from principles. And when you come from a place of principles, normally at the end of the day, you can find common ground while keeping your principles.
The call between Biden and McCarthy came shortly after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that early June is a “hard deadline” for the federal government to raise the debt ceiling and warned that bills will go unpaid if Congress fails to reach a deal before US money runs out.
“I indicated in my last letter to Congress that we do not expect to be able to pay all of our bills in early June and possibly as early as June 1. And I will continue to update Congress, but I certainly haven’t changed my assessment. said Yellen. “So I think that’s a hard deadline.”
At a press conference in Japan on Sunday, the president, in his opening remarks, urged Republicans to “move off their extreme positions,” which he criticized as “plainly unacceptable.”
“It is time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal that can be made solely on their partisan terms,” he said. “They also have to move.”
Republicans returned to the negotiating table on the debt ceiling on Friday night after temporarily halting talks with the White House, which they said were “unproductive.”
Part of the hang-up in the negotiations is that House Republicans want to force big cuts that Biden opposes and are dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Democrats are hesitant to accept a spending limit lower than current levels, a source familiar with the party’s position told NBC News last week. The party may prefer to maintain existing levels, even if it means failing a new spending deal and putting the government on autopilot through ongoing resolution.
Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., who was tapped by McCarthy to lead negotiations with the White House, told reporters Sunday that “a lot of progress” has been made in the debt ceiling discussions.
“If you go through the laundry list of like 50 items, we’ve made a lot of progress,” Graves said. “Understanding each other’s points of view, understanding red lines. And so I think we’ve been able to get really close, much closer than when we started.
Caroline Kenny contributed.
