The White House conceded the prospect of a default has been a topic of discussion for President Joe Biden and his aides at the Group of Seven leaders meeting in Japan.
“It is definitely a subject of interest here at the G-7,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Saturday in Hiroshima of the debt ceiling negotiations in Washington.
LIBERALS BLAME REPUBLICANS, NOT BIDEN, FOR THEIR PURSUIT OF DEBT CEILING ‘PLAN B’
Countries are seeking “a sense” of how the debt ceiling negotiations, which were temporarily suspended, are “going to play out,” according to Sullivan.
“The president has expressed confidence that he believes that we can drive to an outcome where we do avoid default,” he said.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre followed Sullivan at the G-7 briefing. But Jean-Pierre declined to say whether a short-term debt ceiling increase was being considered as a “plan B” amid Democratic concerns regarding welfare program work requirement and energy project permitting reform concessions as Republicans demand spending cuts to extend the country’s borrowing authority.
“There is no question we have serious differences,” she said of the negotiations. But the White House will “work hard toward a reasonable bipartisan solution” that can pass the House and Senate.
Jean-Pierre only provided a short response when asked whether the debt ceiling negotiations had undermined Biden among world leaders.
“Not at all,” she said.
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Debt ceiling negotiations restarted after Republicans abandoned the talks, with Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) describing them as “not productive” and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) adamant the federal government has “to spend less than we spent the year before.”
“At the direction of the speaker of the House, we reengaged, had a very, very candid discussion, talking about where we are, talking about where things need to be and what’s reasonable and acceptable, and that’s basically what’s going on right now,” Graves said after the second meeting of the day.
