Debt ceiling talks spiraled out of control as Biden and McCarthy postponed White House meeting

The meeting at the White House between President Joe Biden, Chairman Kevin McCarthy and the other congressional leaders scheduled for Friday was postponed as the US rushes to pay off its debts.

The meeting will now take place next week as staff from the two sides continue to meet to try to broker a deal that will allow the country to meet its obligations on its $31 trillion debt.

A source familiar with the matter said talks between the two sides are “progressing.”

The United States is likely to hit its debt ceiling in early June.

Both chambers of Congress are expected to be out of session on Friday.

And Biden faces a deadline of his own: he leaves for the G7 meeting in Japan next week.

On Tuesday, Biden received the four congressional leaders — McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — at the White House for a meeting, in which small progress was made.

For months, the president has said he wanted Congress to pass a “clean” debt ceiling bill.

Instead, House Republicans passed a bill late last month that would raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $4.5 trillion in spending cuts over time.

That bill is dead on arrival in the Senate in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

White House officials acknowledged to Reuters that they must accept some cuts or strict caps on future spending if they want to close a deal, but insisted they must keep Biden’s signature climate legislation passed last year along party lines.

But Republicans did not sound optimistic after meeting with Biden on Tuesday.

“Everyone in this meeting repeated the positions they were in. I didn’t see any new movement,” McCarthy said.

Asked if the leaders were any closer to a deal, McCarthy said, “Well, we’ve met. So that’s closer.’

The speaker said he pressured Biden “several times” whether he would agree to any cuts or whether there were areas for agreement, but Biden had no specific proposals.

“I passed a bill – what else do I need to do?” he said.

But Schumer patted McCarthy for not ruling out default, regardless of the circumstances.

“We have explicitly asked speaker McCarthy to remove default from the table. He refused,” the Democratic leader told the press.

Biden, meanwhile, said that “default is not an option” and said he was considering using the 14th Amendment to lift the debt ceiling.

Biden also agreed to consider COVID funding as an area in the budget where he would accept cuts — one of the proposals McCarthy put forward after his meeting at the White House Tuesday afternoon.

“I trust Kevin will try to do what he says,” Biden said when asked if he trusted McCarthy. “I don’t know how much leeway Kevin McCarthy thinks he has, when in fact – and I’m not a smartass when I say this – it took 15 votes to win the speakership.”

“And apparently he had to make serious concessions to get it from the most extreme elements of his party,” Biden continued. ‘I just do not know.’

The 14th Amendment says, “The validity of the national debt, permitted by law…shall not be questioned.”

Some legal scholars argue that this gives the Treasury Department the ability to continue borrowing money above the current $31.4 trillion debt limit, which would require congressional approval to raise or lift.

The controversial idea builds on Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, arguing that it would be unconstitutional for the US to withhold payments even if the debt limit is not increased, effectively challenging the debt limit on legal grounds.