House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday he saw no new movement from President Biden during a White House meeting on debt limit negotiations, just weeks before the federal government is set to run out of cash to pay its bills by June 1.
"Everybody in this meeting reiterated the positions they were at. I didn't see any new movement," the speaker said. He said nothing has changed for Biden since they met on the same issue on Feb. 1.
McCarthy said the next steps on the issue is for staff-level meetings to take place over the rest of the week, and then hold another meeting between Biden, McCarthy and other congressional leaders.
McCarthy defended the GOP position of insisting on spending cuts as a condition of raising the debt ceiling by pointing out that the House passed a debt limit bill, the Limit, Save, Grow Act that accomplishes both, while Senate Democrats have done nothing. Democrats have panned the House bill as a non-starter.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks at a news conference in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 12, 2023 in Washington, DC. During his news conference, McCarthy discussed a range of topics including recent classified documents foun ( Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)
"I've done everything in my power to make sure we will not default," McCarthy said, arguing that both the White House and the Senate have not put forward any debt limit plans at all.
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