House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reflected Wednesday on his hour-long White House meeting with President Biden, who had previously pledged not to negotiate on the debt ceiling a "veto everything they send" to his desk.
Despite the president's forceful denials he would seek areas of commonality with Republicans on spending and the debt, McCarthy said he and Biden undoubtedly were engaged in true negotiation.
"I thought the meeting would rather well, because remember what he was saying he said he would not negotiate with me. I just spent an hour with me in the Oval Office. He knew the topic we were talking about. He was aware of what was going on," he said.
McCarthy pointed out it was the four-year tenure of a Democrat-controlled Congress that ballooned discretionary spending by 30% and put the U.S. on a path where its debt liabilities will outrun its economic output.
"So if you want to know where inflation came from, you know our problems, it's this runaway spending. So we only have two choices, either responsibility or reckless spending. I know where the American people want to go."
Biden told McCarthy he wanted to continue the conversation in the future, as the approximate five-month debt ceiling window wanes, the speaker said.
"I would say you can't sit down for one hour sitting in the Oval Office across from one another, talking about the positions for debt ceiling, the economy and spending without that point," he said of whether Biden actually engaged in substantive negotiation.
"Now, there's times that we strongly disagreed with one another, and that's respectful. But you understand when you sit down with somebody, whether you think at the end of the day, you could come to an agreement."
McCarthy went on to claim nearly three-quarters of Americans want some level of federal spending cuts, adding that if nothing changes, within the next decade the U.S. will spend a net $8 trillion in interest payments on the debt alone.
Host Sean Hannity noted that, despite Biden's "veto" rhetoric, a clip from CBS News in 2011 showed him appearing incensed that "grown men and women are unwilling to budge" on debt and spending – with the host remarking how different of a tone that was from the Delawarean.
Hannity said the Democrats in Congress are banking on the House GOP being as fractious as it was at times during the Speaker's election – and therefore unable to unite around a single fiscal plan, with its razor-thin majority. A divided GOP would essentially allow Democrats to make their case more cogently to taxpayers, he said.
McCarthy said he is confident the caucus will be or remain united behind one plan.
"I'm confident because I know one thing that our conference will not do. We will not raise the debt ceiling, simply just raise it with no savings, with no change in policies, with no direction to change the trajectory that puts us on a path to balance," he said.
McCarthy also responded to criticism of his intention to prevent Democratic Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam B. Schiff of California from being seated on the Intelligence Committee and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota being seated on Foreign Affairs.
Omar has made critical comments about Israel many believe to be anti-Semitic, while Swalwell has come under fire for alleged interactions with a suspected Chinese spy named Fang Fang who worked in his orbit. Swalwell has maintained he took corrective action immediately upon the FBI notifying him of Fang's suspected connections.
McCarthy said Schiff used his influence as chairman of the Intel committee to "lie to the American public" about the veracity of Hunter Biden's laptop and about whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia.
Schiff, of Burbank, and Swalwell, of Alameda, claimed in a recent interview McCarthy's behavior is "Bakersfield B.S." – a reference to their fellow Californian's hometown.
All three Democrats, he noted, remain on their other committee assignments, but McCarthy underlined they don't belong on those particular panels.
