House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday expressed little confidence about negotiations between himself and President Joe Biden to reach a deal on the debt ceiling and avoid a sovereign default.
McCarthy, speaking to a reporter, said that – despite reports of optimism over negotiations on Friday – negotiations were not producing compromises on the majority of demands that Republicans have made conditional on increasing the debt ceiling, embodied in the Limit, Save, Grow Act passed by the House in April. His comments come as both Congress and Biden prepare to leave Washington, D.C., before the end of May, while a default is projected to occur as early as next month.
“I still think we’re far apart. It doesn’t seem to me yet that they want a deal. It just seems that they want to look like they’re in a meeting, but they’re not talking anything serious,” McCarthy told reporters, adding that “[it] seems more like they want a default than a deal to me.” McCarthy also said that “we’ve gotta have a deal done by this weekend to be able to have a timeline to be able to pass it in both houses.”
