Not so long ago, Joe Biden and Republican leader Kevin McCarthy used to talk things over at breakfast in Biden’s vice presidential home at the Naval Observatory.
Now, Biden is meeting with McCarthy Wednesday, for the first time in McCarthy’s House speakership — and relations between the two of them have turned frosty.
“You know, when I met with him as the vice president, he was always eager to sit down and talk,” McCarthy recalled to The Associated Press ahead of the meeting. “He was always a person who would like to try to find solutions, work together.”
Biden has signaled no such open-ended hospitality this time as newly emboldened House Republicans court a risky debt ceiling showdown.
This time, Biden has been making ambivalent comments about the House speaker.
At a fundraiser Tuesday in New York, Biden called McCarthy a “decent man” who was being pulled by demands from restive Republicans. “He made commitments that are just absolutely off the wall” in order to win the speaker’s gavel, Biden said. The president also called McCarthy’s speakership bid “embarrassing” for lasting 15 rounds.
Biden has refused to engage in direct negotiations over raising the nation’s legal debt ceiling, and McCarthy all but invited himself to the White House, pushing to start the conversation before a summer debt deadline.
McCarthy has yet to announce a formal proposal for the budget, but he has denied any interest in scoring partisan points.
The House speaker said over the weekend he would not be proposing any reductions to the Social Security and Medicare programs that are primarily for older Americans.
According to The Hill, Biden told reporters Monday that he would tell McCarthy, “Show me your budget and I’ll show you mine.”
Mr. President: I received your staff’s memo.
I’m not interested in political games.
I’m coming to negotiate for the American people.
— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) January 31, 2023
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified Congress last month that the government was reaching the limit of its borrowing capacity, $31 trillion, with congressional approval needed to raise the ceiling to allow more debt to pay off the nation’s already accrued bills. While Yellen was able to launch “extraordinary measures” to cover the bills temporarily, that funding is to run out in June.
The nation is heading toward a fiscal showdown over raising the debt ceiling, a once-routine vote in Congress that has taken on oversized significance over the past decade as the nation’s debt toll spirals out of control.
Newly empowered in the majority, House Republicans want to force Biden and Senate Democrats into budget cuts as part of a deal to raise the limit.
Biden faced similar issues during his vice presidency, having brokered 2011-12 budget deals with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
This time, McConnell — Biden’s longtime colleague — is again doing his part to influence the process from afar, and nudging Biden to negotiate.
“The president of the United States does not get to walk away from the table,” McConnell said in Senate remarks. “The American people changed control of the House because the voters wanted to constrain Democrats’ runaway, reckless, party-line spending.”
The Horn editorial team Associated Press contributed to this article.