Pressure grows on Biden to bend in debt ceiling talks

Pressure is growing on President Biden to bend in debt ceiling talks with Republicans, though the White House and Democrats are showing no signs of letting up from his no-negotiation stance. 

The president is facing abysmal approval ratings as he heads into the Tuesday summit with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other congressional leaders, who have until June 1 to reach a deal that would avoid the nation’s first default. 

The meeting follows a Washington Post-ABC News poll that found Biden trailing former President Trump in a head-to-head match after previous polls showed him ahead of his GOP rival. It also showed Trump with a decided advantage on the economy compared to Biden.

Republicans, meanwhile, are entering the debt ceiling talks more unified than ever, with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) signing on to a letter with 42 other Senate Republicans backing McCarthy’s position that it is time for the White House to agree to spending cuts as part of a deal. 

McCarthy’s position was also bolstered by the House GOP’s passage of a bill that paired a $1.5 trillion debt limit increase with sweeping spending cuts and clawbacks — a move that surprised Democrats and even McConnell and deprived the White House of the talking point that Republicans have not articulated a spending cut plan.

With the recent developments in their favor, Republicans are amping up the pressure campaign on Biden.

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More debt ceiling coverage from The Hill:

• Financial markets brace for default as Biden, Republicans dig in on debt limit
• 10 questions answered on the debt limit
• Debt limit battle: How we got here
• What would a debt ceiling failure mean for Americans?

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“Biden needs to change his tune. The American people aren’t believing his lies, they want to see real action,” Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, told The Hill in a statement. “We passed a bill — I want to see the Senate take it up. Let’s put the Senate on the record on cutting woke and weaponized government spending, restoring energy security, and getting back to fiscal sanity.”

American Action Network, a nonprofit issue advocacy group that is aligned with Republicans, launched a $250,000 cable ad campaign on Monday to urge Biden to negotiate on the debt. The advertisement, which charges that Biden’s “refusal to negotiate could lead America to its very first default,” is running heavily on CNN and MSNBC in the Washington, D.C., market.

The GOP unity, though, masks real worries on the Republican side. A number of House Republican lawmakers backed the GOP debt ceiling bill — which was intended to bring Biden to the negotiating table — only because they believe it will never become law, and they objected to some of the details. 

It wouldn’t take much for Biden to put the pressure back on McCarthy, who is working with a tiny majority in the House and the ever-present threat that one Republican lawmaker could force a vote on his continued Speakership. 

Yet as McCarthy and Biden enter Tuesday’s talks, the GOP has the upper hand on Biden, who has refused to blink amid the standoff but may need to offer some willingness to agree to spending cuts — now or later — as part of a debt deal. 

“What we hope comes out of this is that Speaker McCarthy does the right thing,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “The president’s going to be as clear as he’s been these last several months … which is, they need to do their job. They need to get this done on the behalf of the American people and do their jobs.”

But how much that message resonates with the general public — who will blame Biden, as sitting president, for any impending financial crisis — remains to be seen. It’s left some congressional Republicans scratching their heads at just how a deal comes to a head. 

“At this stage of the game, the one key ingredient I don’t have is what the administration would come to terms with,” Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, said on “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

McHenry, who previously said he had “complete and utter pessimism” that any agreement could be reached, slightly upgraded his stance Sunday to “some level of modest pessimism now.”

“Instead of being at the depths of the ocean, I’m merely drowning,” McHenry said.

Other congressional Republicans are holding out hope that Tuesday’s meeting could produce some fruit.

“While it is far beyond time, I hope the meeting on Tuesday will be productive for the sake of the American economy,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), chair of the Republican Governance Group. “I have faith in Speaker McCarthy to represent House Republican priorities at the negotiating table and put the risk of default to bed.”

In a tell that the White House doesn’t expect much progress in Tuesday’s meeting, Biden is scheduled to deliver a speech in New York on Wednesday about why Congress must avoid default. And the meeting, slated to be at 4 p.m., likely won’t run long considering congressional leaders will have to head back to the Capitol before at least the Senate starts voting at 5:30 p.m. 

Biden has much bigger problems when it comes to the economy and with inflation remaining at an all-time high. Should a debt limit agreement not be reached, it could set off a financial crisis that his Treasury Secretary characterized as a “catastrophe.” That would deal yet another blow to his reelection campaign as recent polls show most American feel they were better off financially under Trump.

Other options remain on the table too. Biden appeared to leave open the possibility of invoking a clause in the 14th Amendment that some legal scholars say he could use to continue issuing the debt without lifting the ceiling. 

House Democrats last week revealed another last-ditch possibility to raise the debt ceiling without agreeing to GOP spending cuts: Force a vote on their debt limit increase bill through a discharge petition process.

But that plan is a long shot. Democrats would need at least five House Republicans to sign on, and moderates who they would likely target have dismissed the idea. And Republicans have enough support in the Senate to block action on any such bill.

The Senate Republicans’ letter “demonstrates that there are a strong block of Senate Republicans who will not invoke cloture to advance a debt ceiling bill that refuses to address fiscal sanity,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).