'These guys are a bad reality show': Senate Democrat blasts House Republicans over the debt ceiling

08 May 2023

President Joe Biden finds himself in a similar position to the one that President Barack Obama faced in the early 2010s: the threat of a debt ceiling default combined with Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives demanding severe budget cuts. Yet Biden is dealing with a GOP House majority that, under Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California), is even further to the right than the one that Obama faced with then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) believes that McCarthy's caucus is totally unreasonable when it comes to the debt ceiling.

Murphy told the Daily Beast, "These guys are a bad reality show. McCarthy can't negotiate, even amongst a group of ideological lookalikes. How on Earth is he going to negotiate a deal that keeps his gang together and also draws Democratic votes? It's a physical impossibility."

In an article published by the Beast on May 8, reporter Ursula Perano notes that McCarthy's "standing as leader of the House GOP is so fraught, so precarious, that even in the face of a catastrophic economic cliff, Democrats don't trust his ability to negotiate in good faith, nor to actually deliver on his promises."

Murphy is not the only Senate Democrat who is expressing doubts about McCarthy's ability to negotiate a bipartisan budget/debt ceiling deal.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) believes that McCarthy "sold his soul when he got to be speaker." And Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told the Beast, "There's no question in my mind that this speaker is in a much weaker position than John Boehner was not that long ago, and that ought to be a four-alarm concern for everybody who wants to land this economic plane safely."

Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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