WASHINGTON — After speaking by phone with President Joe Biden on Sunday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said they agreed to meet in person Monday afternoon to work on a deal to raise the roof. Of the debt.
McCarthy and Biden discussed the debt ceiling in a call Sunday as the president flew on Air Force One from the G-7 summit in Japan, after negotiations last week between top White House advisers. and House Republicans failed to break a deadlock.
«I think my conversation with the president was productive,» McCarthy told NBC News after his call, adding that the president had requested to meet in person Monday and accepted the offer.
«I think we can solve some of these problems,» McCarthy said. «But I’ve been very clear with him from the beginning, we have to spend less money than we did last year.»
McCarthy said the two sides are «still separate» but he and the president had decided during their call to get their negotiators back together.
“That they inform the president, that he sleep a little. And he wanted to meet in person tomorrow, I agreed to that, we would do it sometime in the afternoon,” he said. «Time is of the essence.»
A White House official confirmed the upcoming meeting Monday at the White House between Biden and McCarthy and said his staff will also meet again at 6 p.m. Sunday night to discuss pending business.
McCarthy praised the White House negotiators for engaging in «very professional» discussions.
“I have great respect for the people on the president’s team,” he said. “They are brilliant, eloquent, they know exactly what they are doing. We may not agree philosophically, but we respect each other, because we come from a place of principle. And when you come from a place of principle, usually at the end of the day, you can find common ground and hold your principle at the same time.»
The call between Biden and McCarthy came shortly after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on NBC News’ «Meet the Press» that early June is a «deadline» for the federal government to raise the ceiling on the debt and warned that the bills will not be paid if Congress cannot reach an agreement before the United States runs out of money.
“I indicated in my last letter to Congress that we expect to be unable to pay all of our bills by early June and possibly as soon as June 1. And I’ll continue to update Congress, but I certainly haven’t changed my assessment, Yellen said. «So I think that’s a tough deadline.»
During a news conference in Japan on Sunday, the president urged Republicans to «abandon their extreme positions,» which he criticized as «frankly unacceptable,» in his opening remarks.
“It is time for Republicans to accept that there is no such thing as a bipartisan deal that is done solely on their party’s terms,” he said. «They also have to move.»
Republicans returned to the debt ceiling negotiating table Friday night after temporarily suspending talks with the White House, which they said were «not productive.»
Part of the problem in the negotiations is that Republicans in the House of Representatives want to force through major spending cuts that Biden opposes and who die when they reach the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Democrats are reluctant to accept a spending cap below current levels, a source familiar with the party’s stance told NBC News last week. The party may prefer to maintain existing levels, even if it means a new spending deal fails and the government runs on autopilot through continued resolution.
Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., who was chosen by McCarthy to lead negotiations with the White House, told reporters Sunday that «a lot of progress» has been made in the debt ceiling discussions.
“If you look at the wash list of about 50 items, we’ve made a lot of progress,” Graves said. “Understanding the positions of others, understanding the red lines. And I think we’ve really been able to get closer, much closer than we were when we started.»
carolina kenny contributed.