Giddy White House does victory lap over debt ceiling deal while conservatives turn on McCarthy

Officially, the American people were the winners of a debt ceiling agreement to avoid default.

But as Shalanda Young, the White House’s chief negotiator, discussed the terms of the deal on Tuesday, it sounded more like she thought the Biden administration had taken over.

She started out cracking jokes and then confirmed that the administration was ready to override one of the Republicans’ key clauses.

And then she paused for a long time when a reporter asked if the president had emerged victorious.

“The American people emerged victorious,” she said in the White House briefing room.

“When you get into these things, why do you do it?

Conservative House Republicans offered a series of criticisms of the deal struck by Biden and McCarthy over the weekend

‘Of course. There are days when I have to slap myself and you say to yourself, Ah, forget it. It’s good. The goal is to avoid default, not to hurt Americans in the process by having drastic changes…like we saw in the Republican Medicaid bill, which we don’t care about.

“So protect the things that would have hurt hardworking Americans. Propose reasonable spending levels, which I think most Americans do when they hear a spending freeze that is reasonable and does our basic constitutional duty of Congress, which is to avoid defaults.

“So it’s not about Republicans or Democrats. If you’re wondering who won and who didn’t, you’ve already lost.

Some Republicans wanted deep cuts. A bill passed by the House in April would have brought spending back to 2022 levels and capped increases at 1% for the next decade.

At the same time, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing resistance in persuading hardline members of his party to back the deal.

Republican defectors estimate that would add $4 trillion to the national debt, even though it includes $136 billion in budget cuts.

As a result, he could face a vote to remove him from office.

Representative Dan Bishop became the first to publicly float the idea of ​​ousting the speaker on Tuesday. .

‘What basis is there for trust?’ Bishop said at a press conference held by the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, when he raised his hand to say he would put the motion to free the speaker “on the table.”

“There are 222 members of the Republican conference. No one in the Republican conference could have done a worse job” in the negotiations than McCarthy, he added.

For his part, the Speaker of the House continues to present the agreement as a victory for the Republicans.

McCarthy told reporters he was not worried about a motion to rescind. ‘Tell me again. What did the Democrats put in there? he said.

The deal was announced on Sunday. Lawmakers must rush to pass it before June 5, slated as the day the federal government could run out of cash and not pay its credit bills.

Members of the Freedom Caucus spoke about the debt ceiling agreement reached between McCarthy and Biden at a press conference on Wednesday, as a protester stood behind them.

Hardliners began tossing around the idea of ​​removing McCarthy from the chairmanship

The House is expected to vote on Wednesday, while the Senate could take even longer before landing on Biden’s desk.

The list of likely invalid votes in the House stands at 22.

Young, the White House budget director, urged Congress to pass the bill.

“I want to be clear: This deal represents a compromise, which means nobody gets everything they want and tough choices had to be made,” Young told reporters.

She was Biden’s best negotiator. And arrived in a jubilant mood in the briefing room, making jokes about the intensity and duration of the talks.

“I will see my child again,” she said with a smile. “I have a little confession to make to you. I have no more clean clothes either.

President Kevin McCarthy unveiled the 99-page bill raising the debt ceiling to avoid US default

Then she described being spotted by reporters in the morning rushing to get clean clothes.

“I didn’t have time to do laundry or take anything to the dry cleaners,” she said. “So that’s pretty much how my last two weeks have been.”

She added that the agreement would protect the administration’s legislative achievements.

And she signaled that the administration was prepared to use a waiver to undo one of the major Republican victories.

They secured a budgeting mechanism known as “PAYGO” – short for pay-as-you-go – which requires new spending to be offset by savings, but it comes with a waiver.

“We will follow the processes set out in the law on PAYGO,” Young said. “And if that waiver is deemed necessary to ensure that President Biden’s agenda is supported…we will use it.”