Chuck Schumer Makes Kevin McCarthy’s Bad Week Even Worse

Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:57 pm

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blew up Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling plan by telling the country that McCarthy doesn’t have the votes to pass a debt ceiling hike that includes spending cuts.

Video:

Transcript of Schumer on ABC’s This Week:

Stephanopoulos: Your Democratic colleague, Senator Joe Manchin says now you should be engaged in negotiations like this.

Schumer: Let me say this. We have a position. We have a clear position. Do it clean. Do it without brinksmanship. Do it without this risk of hostage-taking where things could blow up because as you know, if we don’t renew the debt ceiling, average American families will be clobbered. Their interest rates would go up. Their pension savings would go down. The cost of a house would go up to $100,000. So, it’s risky. Now, McCarthy says he wants to attach certain spending cuts to do this. Where is your plan, Mr. McCarthy? He says he wants cuts. We ask him which ones. He won’t say any. Is it social security and medicare? That would hurt the American people.

Stephanopoulos: He says it won’t be.

Schumer: He says it won’t, but a lot of other people in his caucus still say it will. Will it be police? Will it be the military? His job – we have a plan. Do it clean as we’ve done it four times. Three under trump, once under Biden. He will not even say what he wants to cut, and I’ll tell you why. He can’t pass a plan with cuts. His hard right will demand the kind of deepest cuts that his more mainstream Republicans won’t vote for, and I’ll tell you, my experience in this, the party that holds out with brinksmanship and says, I won’t renew it unless you do what I want, loses. We’re going to win this fight, and it’s going to be a clean debt ceiling.

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Democrats already know that McCarthy can’t pass a debt ceiling increase with cuts, so what will happen is a heavy dose of performative theater. McCarthy will threaten. He may even meet with the White House again, but there is zero reason for Democrats to give him anything for raising the debt ceiling.

Kevin McCarthy has to make it look like he tried, but with a House majority of just a few seats, he can’t stop the moderates in his caucus from teaming up with the Democrats to force the passage of a clean debt ceiling increase.

The debt ceiling is a fight that Speaker McCarthy has already lost.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association