Stefanik declares VICTORY over Biden on debt ceiling and praises McCarthy’s leadership

House Republican Conference Speaker Elise Stefanik declares total victory over President Biden over the messaging war over the debt ceiling and praises House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “strong leadership” in getting the debt deal across the finish line despite Republican holdouts.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a deal with Biden to raise the debt ceiling through 2025, recover $29 billion in unspent COVID funds, and $21 billion from the IRS’s $80 billion purse and Biden’s student loan payments to interrupt. But hardline conservatives, including those from the House Freedom Caucus, said the 99-page bill doesn’t go far enough to curb federal spending and is a “blank check” for Democrats.

71 GOP defectors voted “no” to final approval of the bill, as did a handful of progressives. As a result, McCarthy was forced to rely on 165 Democratic “yes” votes to counter the GOP’s nos to pass the bill by a vote of 314 to 117.

Stefanik, RN.Y., told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that the approval of the deal is a “historic victory for Speaker Kevin McCarthy, but most of all for the American people.”

“I think it’s very important that we work in the House to stand up for fiscal responsibility. And this is a great victory for Speaker Kevin McCarthy and for all House Republicans,” she said.

So, despite the mainstream media trying to sow discord, this is a win across the board. We have cleared Joe Biden’s and the Democrats’ clocks on this issue, on the coverage and on the policy wins.”

When asked if she discussed the deal with former President Donald Trump, whom she has already endorsed for the presidency in 2024, Stefanik kept her cards close to her chest.

“I speak regularly with President Trump and I am not going to comment,” she responded to DailyMail.com.

Trump has been remarkably quiet on the deal, despite his fellow 2024 GOP presidential candidates openly criticizing the legislation.

Stefanik also blamed the “mainstream media trying to sow discord” for House Freedom Caucus members possibly calling for a “motion to vacate” to strip McCarthy of his gavel.

Disaffected members of the House Freedom Caucus, Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Dan Bishop, RN.C., came up with the idea of ​​possibly stripping McCarthy of his leadership position by calling for a “motion to evict.”

As part of a previous deal to become speaker, McCarthy agreed to a rule change that allowed a single motion by a member to leave. That means it only takes one congressman from either party to introduce the motion and strip the speaker of his gavel if a simple majority votes in favor.

Their fellow Freedom Caucus Republican Ken Buck, R-Colo., continued on Wednesday, saying McCarthy “will win the vote tonight, but after this vote we will have discussions about whether there should be a motion to leave or not.” ‘

But Rep. Ralph Norman, RS.C., told reporters, though McCarthy has “lost some confidence,” he’s “not going there,” when asked about the motion to leave.

She said after Tuesday night’s three-hour House Republican Conference meeting, she knew the GOP would get the deal done.

“The facts are: this is the biggest deficit reduction in history,” said Stefanik.

“This is win after win, whether it’s budget deficit reduction, whether it’s job requirements, whether it’s SNAP reforms. This is a historic victory, not just for the Republicans, but especially for the American people.”

Stefanik also criticized the far right that the deal did not do enough to reclaim the 87,000 new IRS agents hired under the Inflation Reduction Act signed by Biden. The bill reduces $21 billion from the $80 billion allocated to the IRS under the IRA, and immediately takes back $1.4 billion.

“There are no new IRS agents this year, we will continue to fight these battles in the credit process,” Stefanik told DailyMail.com.

“And we will certainly riot to defund the entire army of Joe Biden’s IRS agents,” Stefanik continued.

The McCarthy-Biden deal would require Congress to pass 12 annual spending bills or the previous year’s spending cap would be reversed.

As for the estimated $4 trillion spending that die-hard Republicans have touted as a reason to vote against the bill, Rep. Dusty Johnson calls it “one of the detractors’ most sincere disingenuous arguments.”

“This is a big, big win,” he insisted, saying that both the House-passed Limit, Save, Grow Act and the McCarthy-Biden deal would “add trillions to the debt.”

Rep. Jason Smith, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, added that “nowhere” in the 99-page bill does it state that the debt limit will be raised to $4 trillion — a major talking point of the GOP defectors.

“What it does show is that it’s moving to the January 2025 date,” he told DailyMail.com, also saying that Congress would hit the $4 trillion figure only if Congress appropriated that spending. appropriates.’

“That’s where the real battle with every member of Congress is,” he said of the appropriation process.

An aide to Stefanik told DailyMail.com that by sticking to “winning message issues” supported by the majority of Americans, including energy, unspent COVID funds and job requirements, the GOP beat Biden on key points of the deal.

At one point, Stefanik stopped members from involving healthcare in the negotiations because there is no clear support for it and it is more difficult to get a message across.

By clearly defining how Biden and House Democrats “caused the debt crisis” with their Inflation Reduction Act and emphasizing the president’s past support for job requirements when he was a senator and support for negotiations, Republicans gained the upper hand, Stefanik added .

Stefanik started message meetings for small members and newly formed “Tiger Teams” that were deployed in media calls to push GOP messages.

The leader of the House Democrats – Rep. Hakeem Jeffries — had pledged Democratic support for the Fiscal Responsibility Act, telling reporters Wednesday he would vote for it himself.

In addition, the New Democratic Coalition, which has more than 100 members made up of center-left Democrats in the House, said its members will support the deal in a statement Monday.

Progressives had opposed some of the proposed changes to work requirements in social programs, including food stamps.

The Biden-McCarthy deal addresses a long-standing Republican priority of expanding work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

While there are already work requirements for most able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 49, the bill raises the age limit to 54, but has an expiration date and would reduce the age to 49 by 2030.

The agreement would also make changes to the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance to families with children.

While not going as far as the House-approved bill proposed, the deal would make adjustments to a credit that would allow states to require fewer recipients to work, update and readjust the credit to make it harder for states to avoid .