Senate Democrat calls GOP ‘hostage-taking’ in debt ceiling deal making ‘dangerous’: ‘This cannot be the norm’

Correction: The headline and first paragraph of this story has been updated for clarity.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), president pro tempore of the Senate, on Sunday criticized GOP “hostage taking” in the debt ceiling negotiations as “dangerous” and said it can’t become “the norm” for such situations.

“I look forward to carefully reviewing the legislative text and discussing this with my colleagues. However, it can’t be overstated just how dangerous this kind of hostage-taking of our nation’s credit is to our economy and standing around the world,” Murray said on Twitter, sharing an Associated Press article about the agreement in principle reached by the two leaders. 

“This cannot be the norm,” she added.

Democrats have repeatedly criticized congressional Republicans for not agreeing to a “clean” debt ceiling hike that would raise the nation’s borrowing limit unconditionally.

President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Saturday said they’d reached a deal in principle that would raise the debt ceiling for two years and apply new federal spending caps in that same window.

The legislative text isn’t out yet, which has many lawmakers sidestepping questions about whether they’ll back the agreement, which has to clear the House and Senate to take effect.

The tentative deal comes after tense negotiations as the White House pushed for a clean debt ceiling increase and Republicans pushed for a hike tied to spending cuts.

The deal also comes just days ahead of the June 5 deadline which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said is the cutoff point past which the nation will run out of money to pay its bills. If the U.S. doesn’t deal with the debt ceiling in time, the country would go into default, which Yellen and others have warned could be catastrophic for the economy and detrimental to the country’s standing on the world economic stage.

This story was updated at 6:58 p.m.