Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) accused Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) of hypocrisy over his approach to negotiations involving the debt ceiling.
Schumer urged President Joe Biden not to negotiate with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) about the debt ceiling ahead of a meeting of the two Wednesday, the Hill reported.
McConnell argued that Schumer’s stance contradicted his previous stance in 2017 when the roles were reversed.
DEBT CEILING FIGHT SETS TONE OF SCHUMER RELATIONSHIP WITH MCCARTHY
“It is right, appropriate, and entirely normal that our need to raise the debt limit would be paired with negotiations regarding Democrats’ runaway printing and spending,” McConnell said.
He added that Schumer and the Democrats are “trying to rewrite history and pretend that Republican demands for negotiation are unusual, but that, of course, is just false.”
He then said Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “said that the debt ceiling gave Democrats ‘leverage’ in broader talks.”
“As The New York Times explained back in 2017, then-Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leader ‘began formulating a plan to apply pressure, jettisoning the idea of backing a straightforward or clean debt limit as a way to gain muscle in the coming negotiations,’” he said.
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McConnell then used Schumer’s words against him, quoting his 2017 argument that the debt ceiling “gives another ample opportunity for bipartisanship, not for one party jamming its choices down the throats of another.”
