President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have agreed to meet over the debt ceiling, but the White House says it isn't changing its stance.
The two leaders have agreed to meet on May 9, though Biden continues to insist the White House will only accept a clean lift of the ceiling. It's unclear how the White House plans to get McCarthy to agree.
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"On the debt ceiling, you've talked about how this is Congress's duty, we're not a deadbeat nation, all of that stuff," the Washington Examiner asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday. "But what's the president's plan to convince McCarthy of this? What do you plan to do to get him over to your side and convince him to see things that way?"
Jean-Pierre attempted to turn the question back around on the House speaker.
"The question is for Speaker McCarthy," she said. "What has changed? The question to Speaker McCarthy is, in the last administration, he voted three times — three times — to deal with the debt ceiling. So, the question is to him: What's changed under this administration?"
Nothing seems to have changed for either side so far, edging the United States toward what would be an economically devastating default.
The debt ceiling battle now has a soft deadline of June 1, which is less than a month away, and the House has passed a debt ceiling bill that Senate Democrats have called "dead on arrival" in the upper chamber.
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McCarthy’s acceptance comes after Biden called the “Big Four” — that is, McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — on Monday afternoon to schedule the meeting.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen indicated in a letter to McCarthy and other congressional leaders that the U.S. would risk default absent a debt ceiling increase as early as the beginning of next month. This means that Biden and the Capitol Hill leaders may have less time to reach a deal and resolve the crisis than anticipated.