U.S. President Joe Biden hosts debt limit talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., May 22, 2023.
Leah Millis | Reuters
When Kevin McCarthy struggled to win enough votes from his own Republicans to become House speaker earlier this year, Democratic President Joe Biden called the long-running saga a national embarrassment and then had a good time.
“I have good news for you,” Biden joked, pointing to a reporter after a speech in Kentucky. “They just elected you to be Speaker.”
McCarthy also took some jabs at Biden during months of tense exchanges over the U.S. debt ceiling. McCarthy argued that Biden should meet with him to discuss his demand in March to cancel the debt ceiling, and McCarthy joked about the 80-year-old president.
“I’ll bring lunch to the White House. If that’s what he wants, I’ll make it a soft serve. That’s okay. Whatever it takes,” McCarthy told reporters.
Over the past few weeks, however, both have stopped their disparaging and cobbled together a deal that will now lead to Congress voting to suspend the U.S. debt ceiling, preventing a default from wreaking havoc on the nation’s economy.
Like their well-orchestrated deal, the relationship the two have built doesn’t look rosy, but it appears to have gotten the job done.
“I think he negotiated with me in good faith,” Biden said of McCarthy on Sunday. “He kept his word. He said what he would do. He did what he said he would do.”
The deal caps federal spending and forces more poor people to work for food aid, a concession Democrats hate. But it also preserves much of Biden’s inflation-reduction bill and delays the next debt-ceiling showdown until 2025, something Republicans hate.
strange political partner
Biden, the veteran former senator from Delaware, has spoken of the days when the two parties often come together to address pressing issues, and he has urged his fellow Democrats to find a deal across the aisle as he realigns the center part of a larger attempt by the country.
Although he initially called for raising the debt ceiling without negotiations, a compromise was eventually made.
McCarthy, a 58-year-old Californian, exemplifies the boxing style of Republican politics that took root in the “Tea Party” and thrived under former President Donald Trump.
Coming out of a party that pushed for lower corporate taxes and government spending, he now leads an unruly Republican party with radical lawmakers threatening to force him out of the speakership unless he takes a tough line against the White House.
After meeting for the first time at the White House on Feb. 1, an upbeat McCarthy predicted he and Biden would find common ground and meet again soon.
Instead, a three-month standoff ensued.
biden refuse to negotiate Because the White House is betting that investors and business groups will persuade Republicans to drop their threat to drive the United States into default.
Both McCarthy and Biden have been accusing the other of putting the U.S. economy at risk during that time. McCarthy complained of his isolation from the White House.
“I’ve never had anyone from the White House contact me. Nobody from the administration has called me. I’ve called them,” the House speaker told reporters at a Republican retreat in March.
Even after negotiations finally officially began, McCarthy portrayed the president as a captive of “socialists” intent on breaking the deal.
“He’d rather be the first President in history to default on his debts than risk pissing off the Radical Socialists who are now calling the shots for the Democrats,” McCarthy tweeted last week.
But as the two sides struck a deal last week, his tone changed, expressing his respect for the White House negotiators: “They’re very smart, they’re highly respected on both sides. They know their jobs, they know their jobs, they know the numbers.” .”
House Republican Patrick McHenry, the lead negotiator at the talks, noted that Biden and McCarthy were “two Irishmen who don’t drink,” but they found a way to work together.
“What I saw in the Oval Office yesterday was a willingness to engage with each other in a genuine way — to open up differences, to listen,” McHenry said after a meeting last week.
Biden aides say the relationship between Biden and McCarthy has been largely cordial and pragmatic, with Biden acknowledging the speaker faces a struggle to preside over factions within the Republican Party.
Trump-Pelosi relationship
It probably didn’t help their relationship that the two were close with each other’s exes.
In his State of the Union speech on February 7, Biden said that Biden adores former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “I think she will be regarded as the greatest speaker in the history of this country.”
McCarthy was an ardent supporter of Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, and was a frequent visitor to Air Force One during Trump’s presidency.
He is one of 147 Republicans vote to overturn Biden defeated Trump’s allegations of election fraud in the 2020 election, even though he eventually recognized Biden as the legitimate president.
He criticized Trump for failing to rein in his supporters during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, but he still to touch with him.