House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Says He’s Sending Negotiators to White House to Finish Debt Limit Talks

TIME

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he's sending Republican negotiators to the White House to finish out debt limit talks. But he's warning that the two sides are “still far apart” as they try to reach a budget deal with President Joe Biden.

Transcript

00:00 Look, this is urgent, but this is not political.

00:05 This is about doing the work and the business

00:07 of the American people.

00:08 This is something that we have said over and over again

00:11 for the past five months, that this is for Congress to act.

00:15 This is their constitutional duty.

00:16 So we've been very clear, and we've shown urgency from here.

00:22 And look, we think Republicans saying that the White House is

00:29 not showing any urgency is a ridiculous question,

00:31 is a ridiculous statement for them to be making.

00:34 And so we've been saying this for months.

00:35 Congress must ask.

00:36 Congress needs to act.

00:37 And we'll continue to lay the line on that.

00:39 The speaker said this yesterday, that these talks,

00:42 these conversations, the conversation yesterday

00:44 was productive.

00:45 And I think that's important when you're

00:46 hearing that in these types of negotiations, as we know,

00:49 are very difficult negotiations.

00:51 This is nothing new.

00:51 They are incredibly tough.

00:54 And so when you hear it from both sides,

00:56 saying that they're productive, I

00:57 think that's an important statement.

00:59 I'm just not going to get into any further details.

01:02 Coming out of the meeting yesterday, we said this.

01:04 The president said this.

01:06 Both the president and the speaker reiterated

01:08 that the fault is off the table.

01:10 So now we have to do this in good faith.

01:12 We have to move forward.

01:14 Just to open up, I'm sending our negotiation team down

01:18 to the White House to try to finish up the negotiations

01:21 with the White House.

01:22 There's a number of places that we are still far apart.

01:25 I mean, it didn't seem like it'd be this hard.

01:28 So every Democrat voted against raising the debt ceiling.

01:31 Nothing has happened in the Senate.

01:33 I'm not a senator.

01:34 I don't control the Senate.

01:35 Why didn't they pass something?

01:37 The president, he didn't talk to us for 97 days.

01:41 So don't blame me for reaching out to the Democrats,

01:44 for begging the president to meet with me,

01:46 or trying to find it.

01:48 And don't blame us, Republicans, when

01:50 we put a reasonable bill together that we actually

01:52 took Democrats' ideas.

01:54 Well, let me tell the American public,

01:56 I am not going to give up.

01:58 We're not going to default.

01:59 We're going to solve this problem.

02:01 I will stay with it until we can get it done.

02:03 But let's be honest about this.

02:06 We have to spend less than we spent last year.

02:09 It is not my fault that the Democrats cannot give up

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