When it comes to the Republicans’ debt ceiling crisis, the line from most congressional Democrats and the Biden White House has been simple: There will be no negotiations. Congress has a responsibility to pay the nation’s bills, and Democrats can’t pay a ransom to GOP lawmakers every time Republicans threaten to harm Americans on purpose.
As Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii recently told The Daily Beast, “In exchange for not crashing the United States economy, you get nothing. You don’t get a cookie.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added at a briefing two weeks ago, “We will not be doing any negotiation over the debt ceiling. … There’s going to be no negotiation over it.”
With this in mind, it came as something of a surprise when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy published a tweet on Friday afternoon, suggesting that President Joe Biden had changed his position. The missive read:
“President Biden: I accept your invitation to sit down and discuss a…
Read the full article here
