Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday said there are provisions in the debt limit agreement that both Democrats and Republicans can support, an apparent reversal from his statement earlier in the day that the nascent agreement struck between GOP lawmakers and the White House included “not one thing” for Democrats.
“There’s a lot in here for both sides,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol when asked about his comments earlier in the morning.
Hours earlier, however, the Speaker told “Fox News Sunday” in an interview that “there’s not one thing in the bill for Democrats.”
“Right now, the Democrats are very upset. The one thing Hakeem told me, there’s nothing in the bill for them. There’s not one thing in the bill for Democrats,” McCarthy said.
Punchbowl News also reported that McCarthy told his conference on a Saturday night call that there is “not a single thing in this bill” for Democrats.
McCarthy’s change in tune Sunday morning comes as the Speaker and Democratic leadership prepare to sell the agreement to lawmakers in both their parties ahead of next week’s X-date deadline. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the U.S. will run out of cash to pay its bills by June 5, which would trigger the country’s first ever default.
The deal raises the debt limit for two years, places spending caps on federal spending, freezes nondefense spending for 2024 and implements some changes to work requirements for social benefit programs, among other provisions. Conservatives have argued that the terms of the agreement do not go far enough in terms of spending cuts, while liberals are saying that the deal includes too much.
Democrats have particularly been concerned about spending cuts and new work requirements.
Sunday morning, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) should worry about whether or not the left-leaning group will support the debt limit deal.
“Yes, they have to worry,” she said.
The agreement will ultimately need support from a majority of the House chamber to pass, but it is already facing opposition from conservative and liberal lawmakers — creating a complicated math equation for congressional leaders ahead of this week’s vote.
McCarthy recognized those dynamics on Sunday while still characterizing the bill as “positive.”
“It doesn’t get everything everybody wanted, but that’s, in divided government that’s what we end up with,” McCarthy said. “It was a very positive bill.”
“We know at anytime when you sit and negotiate within two parties that you got to work with both sides of the aisle,” he later said. “So it’s not 100 percent of what everybody wants but when you look, the country is going to be stronger.”