Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that he and President Trump believe the debt limit should be tied to Hurricane Harvey relief funding.
During an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Mnuchin was asked whether he can guarantee that disaster aid for Harvey would not be tied to a bill to raise the debt limit.
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“No I can’t, quite the contrary,” Mnuchin said.
“The president and I believe that it should be tied to the Harvey funding, that our first priority is to make sure that the state gets money,” he said. “It is critical and to do that we need to make sure we raise the debt limit.”
Mnuchin said if Congress appropriates the money, but he doesn’t have the ability to borrow more money and pay for it, “we’re not going to be able to get that money to the state.”
“So we need to put politics aside and we’re going to be urging Congress to get both of those things done as quickly as they can,” Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin said he thinks if the debt limit isn’t raised, that will interfere with the storm relief effort.
“With Harvey, it’s moved the situation up earlier, and without raising the debt limit, I’m not comfortable that we would get the money that we need this month to Texas to rebuild,” Mnuchin said, adding that it is a priority.
He added that Trump and his first objective right now is for the people of Texas.
“And make sure that we get the funding to do that,” he said. “So that’s what we’re focused on this week, and we’ll be meeting with leadership of both parties to work on that.”