As last week got underway, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen delivered some bad news to Congress: The deadline to address the debt ceiling could come as early as June 1. Almost immediately thereafter, President Joe Biden scheduled a meeting with bipartisan congressional leaders for May 9. They quickly agreed to participate.
The expectations for this discussion were low. As NBC News reported, attendees met those expectations.
President Joe Biden and congressional leaders failed to resolve the impending default crisis at a contentious meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon, but they plan to meet again Friday. Each side accused the other of being unreasonable. … A source described the mood in the room as “tense and serious.”
As a dangerous deadline approaches, the parties are so far apart that they didn’t even agree on whether the White House meeting constituted the start of negotiations. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries used the opportunity to implore House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to take default off the table and begin talks over the budget. He refused the New York Democrats’ request.
Evidence of progress was elusive. “Everybody in this meeting reiterated the positions they were at. I didn’t see any new movement,” the California Republican told reporters after the meeting wrapped up.
McCarthy, generally known around Washington, D.C., as a charming back-slapper, was apparently not in a persuasive mood: The president told reporters that while three of the four congressional leaders were “very measured and low key,” the House speaker was “occasionally … a little over the top.”
NBC News’ report added, “McCarthy told members the meeting was a waste of time and he hoped … Biden would not waste his time again.”
Or put another way, the president did not surrender the way the GOP leader told him to, which left the House speaker annoyed.
That said, yesterday’s developments did break…
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