White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blamed House Speaker House Kevin McCarthy for slow debt ceiling negotiations on Wednesday after a reporter grilled her about President Joe Biden’s role in the ongoing debacle.
Biden met with Congressional leaders Tuesday for another round of debt ceiling talks as a default looms. McCarthy later said “the structure of how we negotiate has improved” after the White House appointed someone from Biden’s team to speak with someone from McCarthy’s team to get negotiations going.
The Biden Administration said it was “reevaluating” his planned international trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea amid pressure to come to an agreement on the debt ceiling. Biden departed for the G7 summit to Japan Wednesday after the administration postponed the trip on Tuesday.
“I mean, doesn’t it make the president look like he’s caving to Republican demands by making this last-second decision to cancel it after this criticism from Republicans to come up, instead of making a proactive decision to do it a few days ago, or just continuing on with the trip and telling Kevin McCarthy, you know, ‘Call me with an update?'” a reporter asked. (RELATED: ‘They Want A Default’: McCarthy Says House GOP Making Little Progress With Biden On Debt Ceiling)
“Look, the Speaker, the Speaker put us in this position, right? Let’s not forget he put us in a position where he is taking the American economy hostage. We are looking at a situation where America could potentially default on paying their bills, which is something that we have never done before, which is something would be the first time ever, and you’ve heard me say these stats over and over again, we’ve done this 78 times since 1960,” Jean-Pierre said.
“So, I get the question, but Speaker McCarthy and MAGA Republicans got us here. They’re the ones who got, they’re the ones who got, we can, they can, actually take care of this, or could have taken care of this months ago, weeks ago, by just doing their constitutional duty and dealing with the debt limit.”