Kevin McCarthy to meet with Biden in person on Monday
by Reese Gorman, Congressional Reporter |
May 21, 2023 01:15 PM
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will meet in person with President Joe Biden on Monday to discuss raising the debt ceiling after a “productive” phone call on Sunday.
After negotiations between Biden and McCarthy’s negotiating teams hit an impasse late last week, the two had a conversation while Biden was aboard Air Force One heading home from the G-7 Summit in Japan to talk about where the two parties currently are.
McCarthy’s call with Biden seemingly soothed over some concerns and frustrations he and his team had about the debt ceiling negotiations. McCarthy had previously said Saturday that the White House had “moved backawards,” and earlier on Sunday, one of his negotiators, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), said he had been “pessimistic for a while” about the negotiations.
“He walked through some of the things that he's still looking at he's hearing from his members. I walked through things I'm looking at,” McCarthy said of the call. “What I'm looking at are, where our differences are and how could we solve those. And I felt that part was productive. But look, there's no agreement. We're still apart.”
The speaker said he thinks negotiations worsened late last week because of the difficulty Biden’s team likely had trying to brief him while at the G-7 meeting with other world leaders. The negotiators plan to meet on Sunday night to express where everyone is at so Biden can get a “better briefing” when he gets back from Japan, McCarthy said.
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