\n\n“Republicans, Biden asserted Wednesday, \u201csay they\u2019re going to default unless I agree to all these wacko notions they have. Default. It would be worse than totally irresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He reminded McCarthy of the GOP\u2019s hypocrisy \u2014 they had no problem raising the debt ceiling three times during the Trump presidency \u2014 and of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump\u2019s own comments decrying debt limit brinkmanship as reckless. Biden also urged the speaker to \u201ctake default off the table, and let\u2019s have a real, serious, detailed conversation about how to grow the economy, lower costs and reduce the deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to two people familiar with the administration\u2019s strategy, it\u2019s not clear to anyone inside the White House if McCarthy has the votes from his own caucus to pass his bill, and it may not yet be clear to the speaker himself, who has what one person familiar with the White House\u2019s thinking termed a \u201cprincipal-agent problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bill would be dead on arrival in a Democrat-controlled Senate. But the White House is signaling clearly to GOP moderates in the House: Vote to cut popular programs, including Social Security and Medicare, at your own risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf they pass this, we are going to hang it around their moderates\u2019 necks,\u201d said one person familiar with the administration\u2019s thinking.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Biden, his aides say, learned from the Obama administration\u2019s 2011 standoff with Republicans that it\u2019s imperative not to allow the debt ceiling to become part of negotiations. But with McCarthy\u2019s tenuous speakership constantly hanging by a thread, and dependent in large part on his ability to placate his most extreme members, the White House knows that talking him off the ledge on risking default \u2014 giving up what he sees as his main point of leverage \u2014 won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as much as White House officials like the politics of the negotiations\u2019 current phase, they know they, too, will face pressure to negotiate the closer they get to D-Day.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n