Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said if President Joe Biden were to invoke the 14th Amendment on debt negotiations, a route that has been floated by progressive Democrats, it could cause many problems.
In an interview with NewsNation’s The Hill, the former Trump official doubted whether attempting to use the 14th Amendment to avoid default would even work, according to the Hill. The legal uncertainty around the process would also shake faith in the economy and lead to wider problems, he argued.
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“It doesn’t really solve the problem,” Mulvaney said. “I don’t really think the 14th Amendment is going to get either side very far very quickly.”
“If you try something here at the last minute that’s untested, legally in the courts, who’s going to give you low-interest rates for that? If I lend you money on an untested piece of debt, I’m gonna want a much, much higher interest rate because it might be illegal to do so,” he added.
Mulvaney’s comments come as progressive Democrats increasingly push Biden to utilize the 14th Amendment to skirt debt talks with Republican leadership.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), joining a group of progressive senators, backed the possibility of using the option to avoid spending cuts demanded by Republicans.
“I think it should be on the table. And I think that the grounds for it are legitimate,” she told Politico Playbook.
On May 18, a group of progressive senators wrote an open letter to Biden urging him to prepare to utilize the 14th Amendment to avoid the “incalculable” damage the demanded spending cuts would inflict upon the economy.
“We write to urgently request that you prepare to exercise your authority under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which clearly states: ‘the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned,'” the 11 senators wrote.
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Biden has remained ambiguous as to whether he would consider the option but has repeatedly stressed that default is off the table. He announced some progress in a meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Monday.
“I just concluded a productive meeting with Speaker McCarthy about the need to prevent default and avoid a catastrophe for our economy,” the president said in a statement. “We reiterated once again that default is off the table and the only way to move forward is in good faith toward a bipartisan agreement.”
