May 22, 2023 Latest on US debt ceiling negotiations

Republican Rep. Ken Buck told CNN that he and his GOP colleagues aren’t in a panic over a potential government default – and they believe a deal to raise the nation's borrowing cap will come together in the 11th hour.

“I don’t think there’s a panic. We’ve done this so many times with the budget and the omnibus. People like drama," the Colorado Republican told CNN. "There's not a panic for me. And I don't hear that from any of my friends."

Buck added that, while he doesn't think the GOP conference is overly concerned that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden won’t be able to reach a deal before the June 1 deadline of a potential default, "there is a sense that we may not have the same Memorial Day Weekend that we thought we would."

Buck said he thinks McCarthy has done a fine job during negotiations, adding, "I don't think we're in a worse position now than we were three weeks ago. So I think that's good for Republicans. Not to get blamed for all of this right now is good."

Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus demanded that McCarthy stop negotiating with Biden and instead push for the Senate to pass the GOP bill that passed the House last month.

Several members told CNN that McCarthy must not accept a deal that rolls back their proposal. And they warned McCarthy against putting a bill on the floor that could lose a majority of House Republicans and win the support of most Democrats.

"That side over there is the one that hasn't passed anything," Rep. Scott Perry, who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, said of the Senate. "And you keep asking us what we're willing to accept. What we're willing to accept is what we passed last month. That's why we passed it. They haven't passed anything, yet you keep asking us what we want to do, what we’ll take. What we’ll take is what we passed."

Perry added: "What we're not fine with is them just complaining about what we passed, having brought nothing to the table, and then demanding that we take less when they haven't offered a thing. They have offered nothing to solve this.”

Virginia Rep. Bob Good, another member of the House Freedom Caucus, said the Senate needs to pass the House bill.

"The speaker has the responsibility to speak for the House majority and he's doing that. I think he knows which majority of his conference is, and that is that we could get to a debt ceiling increase with 217 votes with the reforms and the cuts that we have in place. And our position hasn't changed that the Senate needs to pass the House bill," Good said.

Rep. Byron Donalds, another member of the bloc of conservatives, told CNN "yes" it would be problematic if a majority of House Republicans opposed a debt limit bill and McCarthy had to rely on Democrats.

"If the majority of the majority is not happy, would Nancy Pelosi ever do that? Nope," he said.

House Democratic leaders plan to begin reaching out to "a handful" of House Republicans about signing onto a discharge petition that can be used as a vehicle to bypass House GOP leadership and force a vote to raise the debt ceiling. 

"We have to agree that we will avoid default at all costs. And the discharge petition is one vehicle available to us to do that," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters following House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's meeting with President Joe Biden Monday evening. "We will need five or six Republicans who claim that they will never allow a default that happened to join us. And if they did so, we can find a way out of this manufactured crisis if necessary."

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark added that Democratic leadership will "be reaching out and saying to a handful of our colleagues: 'Come join us. Come fight for the American people.'"

A discharge petition can be used to force a floor vote, but only if a majority of House members sign on in support. It’s difficult for discharge petitions to succeed because of the high threshold that must be cleared.

North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, who has been a chief negotiator in the debt ceiling negotiations on behalf of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, described the talks on the debt ceiling as challenging.

“I'm worried about the impacts on the markets. I think, to play brinksmanship is not wise when it comes to where we are with the banking system, with the economy. And I think we should have a sense of urgency from the White House team that was not evident in this meeting,” McHenry told reporters at the Capitol.
“This is a moment where cooler heads need to prevail, and we need to come to terms and do so as rapidly as we possibly can.”

Jeffries' position is critical because McCarthy will almost certainly need House Democratic support to pass any deal cut with the White House. 

At a hastily called news conference on the steps of the Capitol, the New York Democrat repeatedly referred to the GOP as "extreme MAGA Republicans" who are holding "unreasonable" positions and abusing the power of their narrow majority.

In particular, Jeffries attacked the GOP for rejecting a White House compromise: To freeze domestic spending at the current levels. Republicans instead want to roll back spending to previous years' levels – and write into law that spending would be capped for several years.

"They've rejected the fact that if President Biden is willing to consider freezing spending. It will reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars. This is what the extreme MAGA Republicans say that they want. They've rejected that," he said.

Jeffries repeatedly refused to say if House Democrats would accept a spending cut as McCarthy has demanded.

He also attacked Republicans for insisting on work requirements for social safety net programs, seeking provisions to ease the permitting of energy projects and pushing for more border security as part of a deal, as well as their push to roll back some of the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats passed last Congress.

“We still have differences. We left the meeting with directing the members of the staff to get back together, work through the night, knowing where some of our differences lie, see if there's other ideas of where we can work through,” he told reporters in the Capitol.

“We literally talked about where we are having disagreements and ideas. So to me, that's productive, not progress, but productive,” he said. But when pressed why he would make staffs stay all night to work if there is no agreement, he expressed optimism that a final deal can still happen.

“I don't think we would agree to talks if we saw it wasn't productive, and that we couldn't come to an agreement. I actually believe at the end of the day, we can come to an agreement. So that's why we're together, why, why it was productive today.”

President Joe Biden said the meeting Monday with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on raising the debt ceiling was “productive,” while acknowledging that areas of disagreement persist.

“We reiterated once again that default is off the table and the only way to move forward is in good faith toward a bipartisan agreement,” the president said in readout from the White House following this afternoon’s Oval Office meeting. “While there are areas of disagreement, the Speaker and I, and his lead negotiators Chairman [Patrick] McHenry and Congressman [Garrett] Graves, and our staffs will continue to discuss the path forward.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he will not waive the House’s three-day rule amid ongoing debt ceiling talks Monday, despite negotiations coming closer and closer to a potential date of default.

The three-day rule requires that legislation be posted for at least three days to allow House members to study it before it can be voted on.

“No, I’m not going to waive the three-day rule because you have the three-day rule for a reason,” McCarthy said after his meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House. “You lend your voice to your elected officials. You want to make sure they have their voice.”

McCarthy then proceeded to criticize former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for previously moving legislation so quickly that “nobody could read the bill.”

He added, “I’m not going to be afraid of what the agreement comes in in the end. ‘Cause I would sit that bill down and I would give everybody 72 hours, so everybody knows what they’re voting for.”  

If and when a deal is reached, there will still be major challenges ahead to successfully pass it in the House and Senate. Legislative text will need to be written, which can be arduous and complicated work as lawmakers and staff dive into nitty-gritty policy details – and can often lead to further issues over the fine print.

Then leaders from both parties will need to wrangle the votes to pass a bill, no small task with narrow majorities in both chambers.

No debt ceiling agreement was reached following Monday's meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters.

However, he called the meeting productive.

“I felt we had a productive discussion — we don't have an agreement yet, but I did feel the discussion was productive in areas that we have differences of opinion,” he said at a media stakeout outside the White House. “We're going to have the staffs continue to get back together and work based on some of the things that we had talked about.” 

The speaker also noted, "I think the tone tonight was better than any other time we've had discussions."

Pressed by CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, the speaker said that raising revenue through taxes, as Biden suggested during the Oval Office media availability, was not something Republicans would be willing to consider.