House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Wednesday that he told the White House that Republicans may not negotiate in good faith.
“It seems more likely that House Republicans want a dangerous default, they want to destroy the economy and they want to trigger a job-killing recession,” the New York Democrat said.
Some Republicans “think it might help their electoral prospects in 2024 when the country is in turmoil,” Jayapal surmised.
Democrats have avoided criticizing Biden and his negotiators directly while expressing concern about potential compromises on the table, such as work requirements for low-income benefit programs and spending cuts. below current levels.
Biden will have to sell any final bipartisan deal that works well for Democrats. But as negotiations continued on Thursday, the president gave his first public comments on the matter in days and warned that the two parties had yet to reach an agreement.
“Speaker McCarthy and I have very different views on who should bear the burden of additional efforts to get our fiscal house in order,” he said. “I don’t believe the entire burden should fall on the backs of middle class and working class Americans.”
Legislative precedent
Concern about setting the legislative precedent for future debt limit battles is driving hard bargaining on both sides.
