U.S. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met at a much-anticipated summit on Wednesday amid an impasse over raising the debt ceiling.
While the two leaders met for more than an hour to discuss “a range of issues”, the debt ceiling has come under the spotlight in recent weeks after the country hit it and took “extraordinary steps” to pay government bills. Even so, the measures are expected to last until early summer, when lawmakers and the White House must reach an agreement on raising the debt ceiling or face the first U.S.-ever default.
McCarthy, the California Republican, told reporters that he and the president had a “good first meeting” and agreed to continue the conversation.
“I think ultimately we can find common ground,” McCarthy said after the closed-door meeting, adding “there is an opportunity for both sides to come to an agreement.”
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Ahead of the meeting, the White House insisted that Biden would not negotiate the debt ceiling, saying Congress had a responsibility to raise the nation’s borrowing ceiling No strings attached. But Republicans have seized the opportunity to use the debt ceiling to secure federal spending cuts, as economists warn that if the impasse leads to a default, the consequences would be catastrophic.
The White House twice asked McCarthy to attend the meeting, according to a memo released Tuesday. First, Biden will seek a commitment from California Republicans that the state will pay back the debt it has incurred. Second, Biden will ask Republicans when they will release their budget, which will reveal which programs the new House majority intends to cut to reduce deficits and debt.
Democrats have been vocal in recent days and House Republicans have called for spending cuts, but have yet to spell out what those cuts will be. McCarthy has repeatedly argued that some “wasteful Washington spending” could be eliminated, while suggesting that Biden and Democrats should make sure of that.
“Everyone is asking the same question of Speaker McCarthy: Show us your plan,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said ahead of Wednesday’s meeting. “Speaker McCarthy has been declaring for days that this meeting was some kind of major victory for him in the debt ceiling negotiations. But Speaker McCarthy forgot one thing that was obvious to everyone else – if you don’t have a plan, you You can’t seriously pretend you’re in any real negotiations.”
The memo did not appear to have been accepted by McCarthy, who tweeted Tuesday that he received it and was “not interested in political games.”
“I have come to negotiate for the American people,” McCarthy wrote.
Meanwhile, Republicans have argued that Biden’s stance against negotiating won’t break the debt-ceiling impasse.
Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said ahead of Wednesday’s meeting that raising the debt ceiling in conjunction with spending talks is “right, appropriate and completely normal.”
“The President of the United States cannot leave the negotiating table,” the Kentucky Republican added.
Indeed, a consensus on the right path forward for McCarthy and Biden seems out of reach.Although most Democrats polling Pew Research Center researchers say Biden should work with GOP leaders to get the job done, even at the cost of disappointing some voters, with 64% of Republicans saying GOP leaders in Congress should stand up to Biden , even at the expense of solving the “critical problems” facing the country. “
The meeting was rare for the two leaders, who have seen little time together since McCarthy hammered the gavel last month. Even so, McCarthy and House Republicans have plenty of time to dismiss criticism of the administration and formulate plans to launch investigations into Biden and his family, while the White House has also repeatedly targeted the new Republican majority, setting concerns about the future. It was an unstable dynamic for two years of divided government.
