As the U.S. House Speaker and President Biden’s office prepare to enter refreshed debt ceiling negotiations, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has reiterated the GOP’s intentions not to move on their hard lines.
"The one thing you know about me," House Speaker McCarthy said on "Mornings with Maria," Wednesday, "I never give up. We have the perseverance and the grit, so we're going to sit in the room and we're going to get this done."
After 104 days of back-and-forth with Biden on debt limit negotiations, McCarthy claimed they reached a "structure" agreement to start reevaluating fiscal common ground that avoids a debt default.
"The president finally admitted he would negotiate. He would assign two people from his administration to negotiate with us. We started last night," the speaker explained. "So we finally have a process, a structure that has worked every time in the past, but now we have a short time frame to get the job done."
WHAT IS THE DEBT CEILING, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU?
President Biden is cutting his international trip short amid the debt ceiling time crunch, despite still leaving for the three-day G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, on Wednesday.
The president had planned to visit Sydney, Australia, next week, but told reporters he spoke on the phone with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about his decision to postpone the trip.
"Defaulting on the debt is simply not an option," Biden said.
Speaker McCarthy expressed his optimism that the negotiation structure currently in place will prove successful, but said the president has largely ignored Republicans’ proposed Limit, Save, Grow Act.
"We've got to spend less than we spent before to curb inflation," McCarthy noted. "We've got to be able to build things in America again. That's where we're going to cut red tape, let projects and permitting process actually work."
"There's a lot of places where we need to save money, like COVID money that you appropriated for two years and nobody spent. That’s common sense," the House Speaker continued. "Why do we have to fight over that to bring that back to the hardworking taxpayer? That's what's crazy."
While the GOP’s debt ceiling bill may not "solve all of our economic problems," the House Speaker further argued it will improve the state of the economy.
"If you look at the 50-year average, the amount of money that we bring into government, normally you bring in about 17% of GDP. We're bringing in 20%," McCarthy claimed of the Limit, Save, Grow Act. "Only two times in modern history have we ever met this, in 1944 and 2000."
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The Treasury Department has estimated that the U.S. will default as soon as June 1 if Congress does not lift the debt ceiling.
"I don't want to have a Biden default. I want to make sure America is strong," McCarthy added. "That's why we raised the debt limit, we passed a bill, and now we're finally in the room where we can negotiate."
Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.
