Biden invites congressional leaders to meet May 9 on debt limit
CNN —
President Joe Biden on Monday called the top four congressional leaders, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to discuss raising the debt ceiling at the White House later this month, following months of an impasse between the president and House Republicans.
Biden’s calls came after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified lawmakers on Monday that the US could default on its debt by June 1. A default would
Biden told the leaders – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and McCarthy – that he wants to discuss on May 9 the need to pass a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling.
The president’s formal call for a meeting follows a months long standoff between Biden and Republicans over the debt ceiling issue.
Biden has not met with McCarthy since February, and earlier Monday the House speaker said he had not yet heard from the president about debt ceiling talks – despite the fact that the House passed a package to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion last week. The bill also includes spending cuts, beefed-up work requirements in safety net programs and other measures that Democrats would not accept. Schumer has described the House legislation as “dead on arrival” in the Senate.
Following the bill’s passage in the House, the president told reporters he would be “happy to meet with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended.” The White House has maintained that the president would only accept a clean proposal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.
A White House official told CNN on Monday that at the proposed meeting with congressional leaders, Biden “will stress that Congress must take action to avoid default without conditions, and invited the four leaders to the White House to discuss the urgency of preventing default, as well as how to initiate a separate process to address the budget and fiscal year 2024 appropriations.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
Source: CNN
