Trump lashes out at former ally Kevin McCarthy for ‘dumbest political decision’ in years
President-elect Donald Trump lashed out at former Speaker Kevin McCarthy as Congress faces a looming deadline to raise the debt ceiling, just as the 78-year-old prepares to return to the White House.
Tackling the debt limit could be one of the first and most challenging hurdles Trump and Republicans face early next year, with virtually no room for error if they want to avoid economic catastrophe.
Trump has demanded that lawmakers take action to raise the debt limit before he is sworn in so he doesn’t have to deal with it at the start of his second term, but some Republican lawmakers have pushed back.
Now the president-elect is directing his ire at top Republicans who reached a deal with Democrats to push the debt limit negotiations to 2025, which McCarthy was when he was chairman.
Trump said Sunday that the debt ceiling deal reached in 2023 between the former chairman and President Biden will go down in history as “one of the dumbest political decisions made in years.”
President-elect Trump called McCarthy’s reaching a deal with President Biden to suspend the debt ceiling in 2023 “one of the dumbest political decisions made in years”
The president-elect expressed his frustration in a post on Truth Social ahead of lawmakers’ return to Washington at the start of the new Congress this week.
“There was no reason to do it – nothing was gained, and we got nothing for it – a big reason why that Speakership was lost. It was Biden’s problem, not ours. Now it becomes ours,” Trump said.
Republicans in the House of Representatives will only have a two-seat majority and a three-seat majority in the Senate during the 119th Congress, meaning they will likely need Democrats’ help to pass some major pieces of legislation to approve.
McCarthy and Biden reached a deal to prevent the US government from defaulting on debt payments in May 2023 with just days left.
Ultimately, 165 Democrats joined 149 Republicans to pass the bill, allowing the US to avoid economic disaster.
The bipartisan legislation suspended the debt ceiling until 2025, while also limiting federal spending and clawing back some COVID relief funds.
But the move drew harsh criticism from some Republican lawmakers, who felt Republicans were not demanding enough in the compromise legislation and threatened McCarthy’s gavel.
McCarthy spoke at a news conference with other Republicans after passing the debt ceiling bill in May 2023. McCarthy was ousted as speaker by far-right Republicans in October after reaching a deal with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown
The debt limit suspension ends on January 1, so Congress will need to act quickly to reach an agreement.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote a letter to congressional leaders just days after Christmas warning that the United States was nearing bankruptcy.
“The Ministry of Finance currently expects to reach the new limit between January 14 and 23, after which the ministry will be required to take extraordinary measures,” she wrote.
Such extraordinary measures are temporary steps the Treasury Department can take to move funds to prevent the U.S. from reaching the cap and defaulting, but these efforts are temporary and limited.
“The Democrats must be forced to vote on this treasonous issue NOW, during the Biden administration, and not in June,” Trump wrote in his post.
The US has never reached the debt limit since it was introduced, but Congress has had to scramble to reach an agreement to avoid it on numerous occasions in recent years as US debt has soared.
Trump with McCarthy in February 2020. During the Trump administration, the debt ceiling was suspended three times as approximately $8 trillion was added to the national debt during his first term
During Trump’s first term, the debt limit was suspended three times, including in 2017, 2018 and 2019. McCarthy was House majority leader the first two times it was raised under him.
The third time it was suspended during Trump’s first term in September 2019, the then-president signed legislation moving the deadline forward two years later in 2021.
Under Biden, the debt limit was raised once in 2021 and then suspended again in 2023, paving the way for the final showdown just as a new administration is about to begin.
Earlier this month, as lawmakers rushed to approve a spending deal to avoid a separate government shutdown days before Christmas, Trump left members of Congress and Speaker Mike Johnson confused at the eleventh hour when he suddenly publicly demanded that the agreement include a provision to address the problems. looming debt limit.
Democrats were outraged when Republicans scuttled a bipartisan deal and opted to vote on a GOP-only bill that would also address the debt limit, but that failed miserably in the House of Representatives when some Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in rejecting it.
Ultimately, Johnson came up with a slimmed-down deal that addressed government spending but left out the debt limit provision. It happened just in time to prevent the government shutdown ahead of the holidays.
But lawmakers will now have to tackle the debt limit, and Johnson’s move could come back to haunt him in his own caucus as questions arise over whether he should remain speaker even though Trump has backed Johnson to remain in that position .
The House of Representatives will vote Friday on a speaker for the new 119th Congress.