McCarthy and Biden postpone the debt ceiling discussion

A White House official announced on Thursday that a meeting on the debt limit between US President Joe Biden and key lawmakers, which was originally set for Friday, has been postponed.

To discuss lifting the debt ceiling, Biden’s advisers met on Wednesday and Thursday with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.

McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol that he thought the staff negotiators who had been meeting this week needed to continue their discussions before the principals met again, but that the delay was not a hint of problems in the negotiations.

According to two sources, White House officials understand that in order to reach a compromise, they will need to accept some expenditure cutbacks or stringent spending limitations but still maintain Biden’s landmark climate legislation, which was approved last year across party lines.


The postponement was described by the White House as a positive step, with meetings moving forward. The US Treasury Department has already indicated that the Federal Government will most certainly default as early as June 1 if the debt ceiling is not lifted, making the news all the more significant and negatively affecting risk appetite. The news is intensified further by the announcement that US Vice President Biden will attend the G7 summit taking place in Japan the following week.