President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have ended their second debt ceiling meeting, convened months after their first in February, by arranging to sit down again on Friday as the threat of a default looms large.
But McCarthy expressed concern that Biden "wouldn’t give me any" possible spending cut proposals during their hourlong conversation at the White House with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
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"I didn’t see any new movement," McCarthy told reporters Tuesday. "I’ve done everything in my power to make sure [the country] will not default. We have passed a bill to raise the debt limit. Now, I haven’t seen that in the Senate, so I don’t know."
He added the 14th Amendment was not broached.
Staff will "start sitting down as early as tonight, certainly tomorrow, to see where we can come to agreement on the budget and appropriations process," according to Schumer.
"His bill doesn’t have a single Democrat in support, and it gets us nowhere because you have to negotiate to get this done," he said of McCarthy. “Take default off the table and let’s resume negotiations in the appropriations process.”
McCarthy told reporters earlier that a deal needed to be struck "by next week" based on projections the "X Date" could be as early as June 1 and Biden's plans to travel to Australia, Japan, and Papua New Guinea for multilateral summits with allies. But Biden and McCarthy remain entrenched in their positions, with many House Republicans adamant the White House must accept the Limit, Save, Grow Act without amendment.
"I hope the president is finally willing to negotiate," McCarthy said as he left Capitol Hill.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeated Republicans' “exit strategy" is "very clear" during her briefing, imploring lawmakers "do your job.” "A short-term extension" of the debt ceiling "is not our plan," she said, a similar stance to McCarthy.
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White House chief of staff Jeffrey Zients, deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, assistant to the president and presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti, Office of Legislative Affairs director Louisa Terrell, and Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young joined the "big four" discussion.
“We’re going to get started and solve all the world’s problems," Biden said in the Oval Office.