Kevin McCarthy has ‘good first meeting’ with Biden about debt ceiling

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy talked about Wednesday that he had a “good first meeting” with President Biden on the White House centered on the debt ceiling impasse and Republican requires for spending cuts.

“The president and I had a good first meeting,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested reporters on the West Wing driveway. “We agreed to continue the conversation.”

Biden and McCarthy centered fully on authorities spending at their first sit-down, McCarthy talked about after higher than an hour of talks — barely than on completely different factors, harking back to contentious Republican requires for administration knowledge.

The meeting occurred hours after the FBI searched Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Del., dwelling for labeled knowledge after mishandled paperwork from Biden’s vice presidency and Senate years have been found at his Wilmington dwelling and former DC office.

“I did not talk to him about classified documents. I came down here to talk about the debt ceiling and our spending, and that’s what we spent our time on,” McCarthy talked about. 

“We had an hour of conversation about this that I thought was a very good discussion,” he added. “I think there is an opportunity here to come to an agreement.”

The House speaker pointed to the $31.5 trillion nationwide debt and rising curiosity funds to make the case that “we have got to change the trajectory to put us on a path to balance.”

“My role right now is to make sure we have a sensible, responsible ability to raise the debt ceiling but not continue this runaway spending,” McCarthy talked about. “The greatest threat to America is our debt. Our debt is now at 120% of GDP, meaning our debt is larger than our economy.”

The White House says it gained’t negotiate with Republicans on spending cuts in alternate for rising the debt ceiling and that any spending cuts ought to return individually, establishing a attainable partial authorities shutdown on the end of September and US default in July — though McCarthy talked about that doesn’t seem attainable.

In its private assertion, the White House talked about Biden and McCarthy had a “frank and straightforward dialogue” and that Biden “welcomes a separate discussion with congressional leaders about how to reduce the deficit and control the national debt while continuing to grow the economy.”

The White House hinted at a broader dialogue with McCarthy than the speaker acknowledged, saying, “They covered a range of issues, and President Biden underscored that he is eager to continue working across the aisle in good faith, after passing historic bipartisan laws during his first two years in office.”

McCarthy talked about he was optimistic a number of spending-reduction deal.

“I told the president I would like to see if we could come to an agreement long before the deadline, and we can start to work on other things,” McCarthy talked about, together with, “if we’re able to get to an agreement, we could have a funding agreement for the next two years.”

Biden has repeatedly accused McCarthy of planning to cut Social Security and Medicare — whatever the speaker’s fixed denials — and ahead of the meeting talked about that he was able to see what spending reductions McCarthy proposes.

Biden suggested reporters on the White House backyard Monday that his message to McCarthy could possibly be, “Show me your budget, I’ll show you mine” — regardless that the White House usually is first to recommend an annual funds.

McCarthy talked about after the meeting that “no, we’re not talking about” Social Security and Medicare cuts, nevertheless that he wouldn’t factor what exactly he must take away.

“To really be able to do this right, I’m not going to negotiate this in the press,” McCarthy talked about.

“The president and I have talked about a lot of different ideas and we’ll work to see if we can come to an agreement. … I think the respectful way to do it is to talk to the president, as we did just now for more than an hour.”

McCarthy added, “We both laid out some of our vision… I can see where we could find common ground.”