WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that he and President Joe Biden will meet in person on Monday to discuss raising the nation’s debt limit.
McCarthy, R-Calif., and Biden spoke by phone as the president flew back from a trip to Japan. McCarthy said the call was “productive.”
Talks to keep the federal government’s funding broke off again for several days, with McCarthy signaling that negotiations would resume later Sunday.
Both sides have said progress is being made, but are staying aloof. The Treasury Department has said a deal should be reached before the funding dries up early next month.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Previous AP story follows below.
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) – President Joe Biden said Sunday that Republicans in the U.S. House must abandon their “extreme positions” on now-stalled talks on raising the U.S. debt limit and that there would be no agreement just to avoid a catastrophic default. on their terms.
In an effort to get the negotiations back on track, Biden was scheduled to call U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from Air Force One on his way back to Washington after a summit of Group of Seven in Japan, where world leaders expressed their concern. about the dire global ramifications if the United States could not meet its financial obligations.
“Let’s find a place where we can find common ground,” McCarthy said a few hours later from the U.S. Capitol, adding that he expected to hear from the president late this morning Eastern time.
Biden made it clear in his closing press conference before leaving Hiroshima that “it’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no deal that can be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms.” He said he had done his part to try to raise the debt limit so the US government could keep paying its bills by accepting significant spending cuts. “Now is the time for the other side to move from its extreme position.”
Biden had been scheduled to travel from Hiroshima to Papua New Guinea and Australia, but cut his trip short because of tense negotiations on Capitol Hill.
Biden’s Treasury Department has said it could run out of cash as soon as June 1, and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday: “I think that’s a tough deadline.” Even with a new wave of tax revenue expected soon, perhaps giving Washington more time to negotiate, he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “the odds of getting to June 15, even though pay all our bills, they’re pretty low.”
Given that time pressure, Biden said it was his guess that McCarthy “would want to deal directly with me to make sure we’re all on the same page.” A compromise remained within reach, the president said, despite their differences.
“I hope that Speaker McCarthy will be waiting to negotiate with me when I get home,” he said. “I’m waiting to find out.”
Republican lawmakers are holding back on demands for sharp spending cuts, rejecting alternatives proposed by the White House to reduce deficits.
“Nothing has been agreed upon at all. But all the discussions we had before, I felt we were in a place where we could agree together that we would have a compromise,” McCarthy said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “Now the president, although he was abroad, thought of changing his place.”
The speaker later told the reporter, “We have 11 days to go. We passed it in the House, in the Senate. Let’s just be responsible.”
Republicans want work requirements in the Medicaid health care program, although the Biden administration has countered that millions of people could lose coverage. The GOP also introduced new cuts to food aid by restricting states’ ability to waive work requirements in places with high unemployment. That idea, when introduced under President Donald Trump, caused an estimated 700,000 people to lose their food benefits.
GOP lawmakers are also seeking cuts to IRS money and are asking the White House to accept parts of their proposed immigration overhaul.
The White House has countered by keeping defense and non-defense spending next year, which would save $90 billion in fiscal year 2024 and $1 trillion over 10 years.
“I think we can come to an agreement,” Biden said, though he added this about Republicans: “I can’t guarantee they wouldn’t force a default by doing something outrageous.”
Republicans had also rejected White House proposals to raise revenue to further reduce deficits. Among the proposals the GOP opposes are policies that would allow Medicare to pay less for prescription drugs and the closing of a dozen tax loopholes. Republicans have refused to roll back Trump-era tax breaks for corporations and wealthy families, as proposed in Biden’s own budget.
Biden, however, insisted that “revenue is not off the table.”
For months, Biden had refused to participate in debt limit talks, arguing that Republicans in Congress were trying to use the debt limit vote as leverage to extract concessions from the administration on other policy priorities.
But with the June 1 X-date and Republicans putting their own legislation on the table, the White House began talks on a budget deal that could accompany a debt limit increase.
Biden’s decision to set up a call with McCarthy came after another opening day with no outward signs of progress. Food was brought into the Capitol’s negotiating room Saturday morning, only to be taken away hours later. The talks, however, could resume later Sunday after the Biden-McCarthy conversation.
The president sought to assure the leaders attending the meeting of the world’s most powerful democracies that the United States would not default. US officials said leaders were concerned but largely confident that Biden and US lawmakers would resolve the crisis.
The president, however, said he ruled out taking action on his own to avoid a default. Any such steps, including suggestions to invoke the 14th Amendment as a solution, would be tied up in the courts.
“This is an issue that I think is not settled,” Biden said, adding that he hopes to try to get the judiciary to weigh in on the idea going forward.
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Miller and Boak reported from Hiroshima, Japan. Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Will Weissert contributed to this report.
