It's a tale of an underestimated House speaker determined to defy expectations that he couldn't address a complex debt limit fight, and a president who tuned out the noise from his own party to ensure a default would not happen on his watch.
WASHINGTON — It was advice that Mitch McConnell had offered to Joe Biden once already: To resolve the debt limit standoff, he needed to strike a deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — and McCarthy alone. But after the first meeting of the top four congressional leaders with the president in early May, the Senate minority leader felt the need to reemphasize his counsel.
But it was also a standoff largely instigated by Republicans who argued they needed to use the debt limit threat as a cudgel to rein in federal spending. And even with a resounding 314-117 House vote — followed by a 63-36 Senate vote — the episode is testing the durability of McCarthy's speakership and his ability to tame a restive hard-right flank.
The five negotiators — Graves, McHenry, Ricchetti, Young and legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell — met daily in a stately office on the first floor of the Capitol, under frescoes painted by the 19th century muralist Constantino Brumidi. Inside, they would home in with seriousness on priorities and red lines to figure out how they could reach a deal.Republicans were losing patience as the White House didn't appear to be budging on curbing federal spending.
The White House went public with its own frustrations as the negotiations seemed to be going awry, first with a lengthy statement from communications director Ben LaBolt and then from Biden himself at a news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, where he was attending a summit of the world's leading democracies.
The night before the vote, McCarthy gathered House Republicans in the basement of the Capitol, wheeled in pizza and walked lawmakers through the bill, while daring the Freedom Caucus members to use the same confrontational language they used at a news conference earlier in the day. By the time the meeting ended, it was clear McCarthy had subdued the revolt.Biden and McCarthy were a study in contrasting styles.
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