Biden hosts White House meeting to try to prevent default

WASHINGTON – The chasm between President Joe Biden and House Republicans remained wide after Tuesday’s hour-long meeting in the Oval Office on the debt ceiling attended by all four top congressional leaders.

But the attendees made progress on Biden’s behalf, including agreeing to turn the multilateral debt-straightening negotiations into a one-on-one face-to-face meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s close ally and two White House aides. said there was

“That doesn’t mean we’re going to get a deal,” McCarthy told reporters after the meeting, but overall, “the process is better.”

Biden told reporters that he was often tasked with dealing with multiple things at once and said he was confident negotiations would progress even at the G7 summit.

Biden told reporters after the meeting, “There’s still work to be done, but we’re going to have regular discussions over the next few days and make it clear to the chairs that the staff will continue to meet daily to ensure we don’t default.” I made it,” he said. meeting.

The White House said Mr Biden “has instructed his staff to continue to meet daily on unresolved issues. He said he would like to reach out to leaders by phone later this week and meet with them when he returns from abroad.”

“I think there was an overwhelming consensus today with congressional leaders that default is never an option,” Biden told reporters.

The president said Republicans in Congress were reluctant to discuss “raising revenue” but were disappointed to see progress.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York called it a “good and productive meeting,” noting it was “more cordial” than the last one last week.

“The only way is to pass a bipartisan bill in both houses…we’re going to avoid a default,” Mr. Schumer said.

The White House also announced on Tuesday that it was canceling the second line of the president’s upcoming foreign trip, given the delicate circumstances of the debt ceiling negotiations.

Biden is currently scheduled to leave for Japan on Wednesday to attend the G7 summit. A person familiar with Biden’s plans to visit told NBC News that Mr Biden returned to the United States on Sunday shortly after the meeting ended, with planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia not scheduled.

His return marks a pivotal moment in efforts to avoid the first-ever U.S. debt default and prevent major economic damage.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that McCarthy, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (Dennessee, New York), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y), Minority Leader of Mitch McConnell, Republican, Kentucky, on Tuesday. McCarthy said his House aide, Rep. Garrett Graves (R, Louisiana), will be represented in ongoing talks, and the White House will be represented by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young. He said he would send Mr. and Steve Rickety, one of Biden’s closest advisers in the West Wing.

More stringent work requirements for social safety net programs have recently emerged as a potential compromise area.

Labor limits for social programs are a major demand of House Republicans and are included in the partisan debt-limitation bill that passed the House last month.

“People want it,” McCarthy said on Tuesday, citing a recent poll in Wisconsin. “The idea that both sides want it [Democrats] They want us to default because they won’t cooperate with something that’s ridiculous to us. ”

But the issue is also a red line for some progressive Democrats, a fact that could confuse the vote counts for a debt-severance deal that could pass the House.

Rep. Lo Khanna, a California Democrat and member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told MSNBC that increasing the current labor requirements for federal assistance programs is “not a start for me.”

“This is really cruel, especially with the economy slowing down,” Khanna said. “I hope the president sticks to his statement that once the debt is paid off, we can negotiate the budget.”

Over the weekend, Mr. Biden answered a question about labor requirements, citing his Senate record voting on welfare labor requirements in the 1990s.

“I voted for a tougher aid program, which is now in law, but Medicaid is a different story,” Biden said Sunday in Rehoboth, Delaware. I am waiting to hear what the proposal is.”

Republican bills passed last month include tightening labor requirements not only for Medicaid, but also for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Fund and food stamps for supplemental nutrition programs.

The White House reiterated Tuesday that Mr. Biden would reject at least some of the proposed labor requirements.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Mr Biden “will not accept any proposal to strip people of their health insurance.” She just didn’t say she wouldn’t accept changes to food stamps or temporary assistance programs.

This is a story in development. Please check the latest information.