President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy are gathering once again at the White House at 5:30 pm ET on Monday as time is running out for them to reach a deal on the debt ceiling.
Mr Biden cut short his trip to Asia, returning from Japan on Sunday night so he could work on a deal in the final days before the June 1 deadline. The president and McCarthy spoke by phone while Mr. Biden was aboard Air Force One en route back to Washington, and negotiators appointed by the president and the speaker have been trying to agree on a framework .
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the US could be unable to pay its bills and could default on its debt as early as June 1, but that date could slip in any direction. And it will take time to pass any legislation through both houses of Congress, even after the president and McCarthy reach an agreement.
Friday, negotiators on the Hill seemed to reach an impasse, pausing the conversations. Saturday, McCarthy he tweeted the White House is “backtracking on negotiations,” blaming the stalemate on “the socialist wing of the Democratic Party.”
A White House official says the spokesman and the president agreed Tuesday that the final product must be bipartisan. But the official said that by the end of the week, the speaker’s team had moved away from some of the options being discussed. For example, the White House official said, the speaker’s team proposed an additional cut to food assistance that was not in the House-passed bill and capping annual funding three times more than the agreements recent budgets.
EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / REUTERS
Mr. Biden began a news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, saying he had invested more than a trillion dollars in spending cuts and “now it’s time for the other side to move their extreme positions because a lot of what we’ve already have proposed. is simply, frankly, unacceptable.”
The president said he could not promise the world leaders gathered for the G-7 talks that the US would default on its debt.
“I can’t guarantee they won’t force a default by doing something outrageous,” Biden said of Republicans.
McCarthy told reporters Sunday that his conversation with the president on Sunday “went well.”
Trending news
Kathryn Watson
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or login
for more features.
