The Biden White House has made its opening salvo against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as they prepare to face off on the debt limit: The deals the speaker made with conservatives to clinch the gavel will cause a crisis.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates hit out at Mr McCarthy, saying in a statement to Politico, "It is well past time for Speaker McCarthy and the ultra MAGA Republican House members to come out of the dark and tell the American people, in-full, what they decided in secret."
Of course, the White House is referring to the deals that Mr McCarthy made with a series of conservatives who opposed his speakership to finally win the gavel. Most of the conservatives who opposed his bid ultimately relented.
As of right now, many of the deals that Mr McCarthy cut are still largely vague or were made verbally. But friend of the newsletter Sahil Kapur at NBC News reported that some Republicans like Representative Ralph Norman, a holdout who switched to support Mr McCarthy, want spending cuts equal to an increase in the debt limit. Representative Chip Roy, another former holdout, wants to cut spending to fiscal year 2022 levels and balance the budget in 10 years. Meanwhile, former Trump adviser Stephen Miller wants to use the debt limit as leverage on cutting the IRS or curtailing abortion (forgetting the fact the Red Wave did not materialize largely because of the Supreme Court's abortion ruling.
All of this comes as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the US will hit the debt limit on Thursday. As a result, the Biden White House wants to say that Republicans are playing games with the United States's full faith and credit. Furthermore, they want to make Mr McCarthy, who hardly inflames passions either way, be seen as a stooge of the far right.
But Mr McCarthy isn't doing much to change that image. On Tuesday, CNN's Melanie Zanona reported that the House GOP Steering Committee voted to reinstate Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar onto their committees.
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