5m ago / 7:23 PM UTC
Sen. Sanders says he will vote no on debt bill
Sanders will vote against the debt ceiling bill, he announced today.
“At a time of massive wealth and income inequality I cannot, in good conscience, vote for a bill that takes vital nutrition assistance away from women, infants, children, and seniors, while refusing to ask billionaires who have never had it so good to pay a penny more in taxes,” Sanders said in a statement, topping off a list of his complaints against the bill.
Sanders also called the bill “totally unnecessary” and said he looks forward to the day when Biden eliminates the debt ceiling by invoking the 14th Amendment.
“I look forward to the day when he exercises this authority and puts an end, once and for all, to the outrageous actions of the extreme right-wing to hold our entire economy hostage in order to get what they want,” Sanders wrote.
55m ago / 6:33 PM UTC
1h ago / 6:03 PM UTC
Biden sounds optimistic tone on debt ceiling deal, ‘God willing’
Biden sounded an optimistic tone that the deal he struck with McCarthy to lift the debt ceiling would be “one step closer” by the end of the week, despite growing opposition from Democrats’ left flank.
“I think things are going as planned, God willing,” the president said today when asked about his response to progressive members, some of whom say they plan to vote against the bipartisan agreement.
Biden, who is traveling to Colorado today, said he expects the bill to move forward tonight. “God willing, by the time I land, Congress will have acted, the House will have acted, and we’ll be one step closer,” he said.
1h ago / 6:00 PM UTC
How the Senate could miss the deadline
If the bill passes the House tonight, the U.S. still could miss Monday’s debt ceiling deadline because of delay tactics in the Senate.
A bill can be considered almost immediately with the agreement of all 100 senators, but on the flip side, any one senator can object and slow consideration. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has already said he would “use every procedural tool at my disposal to impede a debt-ceiling deal that doesn’t contain substantial spending and budgetary reforms.”
Without an agreement, the Senate could be forced to wait until Tuesday, a day after Treasury’s deadline, to send the bill to Biden’s desk.
Senate leaders are likely to try to come to some kind of agreement on allowing senators a series of amendment votes to speed things up. The amendments would almost certainly all fail, to avoid blowing up the debt ceiling deal, but they would give senators a chance to vote their opinions and get their colleagues on the record, as well.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said this morning that “the universe is half a dozen” potential GOP amendments. “I think if we could get a reasonable agreement on processing at least a handful of amendments, then everything moves,” he said.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has urged members to move quickly: “Senators must be prepared to act with urgency to send a final product to the president’s desk before the June 5 deadline.”
2h ago / 5:48 PM UTC
McCarthy announces debt commission — months after dismissing the idea
McCarthy’s announcement this morning that he’ll establish a bipartisan commission to examine the budget comes just a few months after he rejected that idea.
Back in February, after visiting the White House for his first debt ceiling meeting with Biden, McCarthy told reporters: “Look, I don’t need a commission to tell me where there’s waste, fraud and abuse. I don’t need a commission to tell us where we’re spending too much. I don’t need a commission to tell us we’re $31 trillion debt. Nobody needs a commission in the American public to tell us that we have spent too much just like any family.”
Asked this morning what changed, McCarthy said: “I was opposed to the idea to just lift the debt ceiling and say some commission will handle the problem in the future.”
“This is a problem for all of America,” he continued. “So why don’t we be adults about it? Why don’t we sit in a room together? Why don’t we have honest discussions and come together and get some real reforms that we’re not going debt ceiling to debt ceiling? The debt ceiling is coming January 1, 2025.”
2h ago / 5:18 PM UTC
Rep. Khanna says he’ll vote ‘no’ on debt ceiling but has ‘full confidence’ deal will pass
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said that he will vote against the debt ceiling bill but praised Biden for doing the “best he could” in negotiating the deal.
Khanna, a member of the Progressive Caucus, said that he couldn’t “in good conscience vote for a process that ran roughshod over the Constitution, and that’s going to leave a lot of vulnerable people without food assistance and leave a lot of student loan holders without relief.”
He pointed to the increase in defense spending, caps on spending for domestic programs and the approval for the Mountain Valley Pipeline as areas of concern.
Still, Khanna said Biden deserves credit for negotiating in a “hostage situation” and said he is confident that the deal will pass.
“It could have been a lot worse,” he said.
3h ago / 4:40 PM UTC
Dem Leader Jeffries says he’ll back deal ‘not because it’s perfect’
The House Democratic leadership reaffirmed support for the debt ceiling deal after what Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said was a “thoughtful, comprehensive, clear-eyed discussion” with their membership and White House negotiators this morning.
“I made clear that I’m going to support the legislation that is on the floor today and that I support it without hesitation or reservation or trepidation,” he told reporters. “Not because it’s perfect, but in divided government, we, of course, cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.”
Although some progressive members, including Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, have said publicly they will not support the bill, Jeffries said the conference is not “fractured at all” and Democrats are “unified” behind avoiding a default. He added that he had a “good conversation” with Jayapal this morning.
3h ago / 4:33 PM UTC
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is a ‘no’ on the debt deal
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will not be voting for the debt ceiling legislation, she told reporters this morning.
If McCarthy needs her vote, the New York Democrat said, “he can come and get it, and he can come negotiate some things away.”
“I think Republicans need to own this vote. This was their deal, this was their negotiations,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “They’re the ones trying to come in and cut SNAP, they’re trying to come in and cut environmental protections, they’re trying to ram through an oil pipeline through a community that does not want it.”
3h ago / 4:20 PM UTC
Graham says debt bill is ‘terrible’ on defense, Hawley also a ‘nay’
Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Josh Hawley, of Missouri, said this morning that they’ll oppose the debt ceiling deal.
Hawley said it doesn’t do “anything to address our massive structural trade deficit with multiple foreign nations, but particularly with China,” while Graham said “it’s terrible” on defense.
“There’s some Republican leaders saying this deal fully funds defense. That’s just about as accurate as the border is secure,” Graham said.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, and Majority Whip Dick Durbin, of Illinois, stressed that they plan to support the legislation even though they take issue with aspects of it and warned against holding up the bill.
“I just hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will be mindful of the fact that we need to do this for the good of our economy and the good of our country, but also for one another,” Durbin said.
“Delaying this to get a headline is really not appropriate,” he added.
Hawley said he does not see “much purpose” in holding up a vote on the deal, while Graham was elusive.
“We’ll see,” the South Carolina senator replied.
3h ago / 3:59 PM UTC
McCarthy ‘not fearful’ as some in GOP raise threats to his speakership
McCarthy responded on Fox News to the possibility of Rep. Dan Bishop filing a motion to oust him from the speakership.
“Governing is not easy, but I’m not fearful of anything,” he said.
“I’m not going to give up on the American people, and this isn’t the end,” McCarthy said, referring to the budget and debt talks. “This doesn’t solve all the problems. This is the first step.”
When asked about GOP members planning to vote against the bill tonight, he said, “We’ll get it done overwhelmingly.”
4h ago / 3:53 PM UTC
What the debt ceiling deal means for student loans
Federal student loan borrowers are facing a reckoning as a result of the debt ceiling deal the House will vote on today.
If the agreement is signed into law, payments on federal student loans that were paused at the start of the pandemic will be reinstated at the end of August, with those bills coming due the following month.
That means some 43 million borrowers like Daniel Galván, a 34-year-old from Southern California, must start tightening their household budgets amid higher food costs and other unforeseen expenses.
Galván, a university administrator who still owes about $10,500 on his student loans, said payments may have stopped over the last three years, but his financial obligations only grew.
“The pause was helpful,” he said yesterday. “My wife and I could buy a house in 2020. The money that would have gone to a loan payment helped me save up for that house and our initial expenses. Now, we have 1-year-old twins, and they are not cheap.”
4h ago / 3:16 PM UTC
4h ago / 2:59 PM UTC
Schumer urges speed in passing the debt bill, ‘no margin for error’
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor that his colleagues should be prepared to move quickly on the debt ceiling bill.
“I cannot stress enough that we have no margin — no margin — for error,” he said. “Either we proceed quickly and send this bipartisan agreement to the president’s desk, or the federal government will default for the first time ever.”
Schumer said that he will move to bring the bill to the floor as soon as possible when it reaches the Senate.
He added that he hopes the House “does its job” today.
Later on the floor, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated his support for the bill “without delay.”
5h ago / 2:31 PM UTC
Rep. Jayapal says she will vote ‘no’ on debt deal
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., told NBC News that she will vote “no” on the debt deal, which the House is set to vote on tonight.
Jayapal, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said many members of her caucus, which is composed of almost half the Democrats in the chamber, will join her in voting against the legislation, according to her early whip count.
“This is a right-wing, center-right deal,” she said. “And if we want to have credibility with the progressive wing of our party, then we need to be able to show that we’re fighting for them.”
House GOP leaders expect that not all Republicans will vote in favor of the legislation, so the bill will need the support of some Democrats for it to pass the chamber.
5h ago / 2:06 PM UTC
McCarthy says he will put together commission to look at budget
McCarthy said this morning that he will put together a bipartisan commission to review the budget. He refused to share with reporters the whip count for tonight’s vote.
“After today, I’m going to put a commission together to look at the entire budget,” the speaker said.
He added, “I want to make it a bipartisan commission that we can be very serious about looking long term to solve this problem once and for all.”
When asked whether it matters that he will not have the entire GOP conference behind him in tonight’s vote, McCarthy said no.
“No, it matters it’s going to become law,” he said.
McCarthy continued: “Everybody has a right to their own opinion. But on history, I’d want to be here with this bill today.”
5h ago / 2:05 PM UTC
Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus endorses debt ceiling legislation
The Problem Solvers Caucus today endorsed the debt ceiling legislation, which is set to be taken up by the House tonight.
“There is still much more work to be done,” caucus co-chair Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., said in a release. “But this legislation is a very, very important first step.”
The other co-chair, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., echoed his Republican counterpart, saying in the release that the caucus was proud to endorse the bipartisan agreement and prevent an “economic collapse.”
“In the end, this vote will happen from the middle out and the Problem Solvers will play a key role in getting this legislation across the finish line and preventing a default,” he said.
The Problem Solvers Caucus is composed evenly of Democrats and Republicans.
8h ago / 11:05 AM UTC
What’s in the debt ceiling bill?
The bipartisan deal struck by Biden and McCarthy would extend the debt limit for two years, alongside modest federal spending cuts and a series of policy provisions.
The 99-page Fiscal Responsibility Act, which McCarthy says will get a vote in the Republican-led House today, will need to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate before the deadline of Monday set by the Treasury Department to act or risk default.
8h ago / 11:05 AM UTC
Far-right members float threatening McCarthy’s speakership
As criticism builds in Republican ranks over the debt ceiling deal struck by McCarthy and Biden, some hard-line conservatives have begun floating the idea of toppling McCarthy as House speaker.
On a House Freedom Caucus call Monday night, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., floated using the motion to vacate, a rule that would allow any House member to force a vote to remove the speaker, two sources familiar with the call said. Buck, speaking toward the end of the call, referred to it as the “elephant in the room,” a source said.
After House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., suggested it might be too early for such a drastic threat, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., proposed using the threat to force McCarthy to allow members to amend the bill on the House floor, under an “open rule” that could stall the bill’s passage.
8h ago / 11:05 AM UTC
The House will hold its debt ceiling vote tonight
The House plans to vote on the debt ceiling deal around 8:30 p.m. ET.
Several Republicans and Democrats have said they will vote against the bill, which represents a compromise between Biden and McCarthy, but McCarthy has said he’s “confident” it will pass.
Far-right members have been most critical of the deal, and conservative outside groups such as Club for Growth and FreedomWorks have encouraged members to oppose it.
If the bill passes, it will head to the Senate before Biden can sign it into law. The deadline to act on the debt ceiling is Monday.
