Karine Jean Pierre, White House Press Secretary, blamed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday for the slowness of debt ceiling negotiations after she was questioned by a reporter about the role played by President Joe Biden in this ongoing mess.
Biden met Tuesday with Congressional leaders for another round in debt ceiling discussions as a default loomed. McCarthy said later that “the structure of our negotiations has improved” since the White House assigned someone from Biden’s team as a liaison between McCarthy’s team and someone from Biden’s team in order to start talks.
Biden’s administration said that it would “reevaluate” its planned international trip to Australia, Papua New Guinea and other countries due to pressure from creditors to reach an agreement over the debt ceiling. Biden left for the G7 Summit in Japan on Wednesday, after the administration had postponed his trip Tuesday.
“Doesn’t this make it look like the President is caving in to Republican demands, by cancelling it at the last minute after the Republicans’ criticism to come up? Instead of taking a proactive decision a few days earlier, or continuing with the trip, and telling Kevin McCarthy to call me with an updated status?” “‘What do you think?'” asked a reporter.
“Look, Speaker, Speaker put us in this situation, right?” We must not forget that he has put us in the position of holding hostage the American economy. “We are facing a situation in which America may default on their bills. This is something we have not done before. It would be the very first time that this has happened. You’ve heard me repeat these statistics over and over, but we’ve done it 78 times since 1961,” Jean-Pierre stated.
“I understand the question but MAGA Republicans and Speaker McCarthy got us to this point.” “They’re the only ones who understand, they are the only ones who understand, we can do this or they could have done this months, weeks ago by doing their constitutional duties and dealing with debt limits.”
