Kevin McCarthy says he’ll bring Biden a “soft food” lunch if that invites him to the White House to hold talks about tight budgets and debt limits
- McCarthy attacked the 80-year-old president as he searched for a meeting
- He previously called Biden “missing in action”
- Biden calls for a “clean” increase in the statutory debt limit
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried a new tactic on Thursday to try to secure an invitation to the White House for talks – offering to bring the 80-year-old president a “soft lunch” to jump-start negotiations .
McCarthy made the quip at his weekly news briefing Thursday, days after warning Biden about it and penning a letter accusing him of risking a “fragile economy” with his refusal to start negotiations on House Republicans’ budget cut requests “ to have caused.
“He makes the decision that he wants to jeopardize the economy. I don’t know what else I can do and how easy — I’d take lunch to the White House,” McCarthy said. “I would make it soft food if that’s what he wants. It does not matter. Whatever it takes to meet,’ he said.
That was almost certainly a message to Biden’s advanced age.
“I think the president gets to pick his own Starbucks,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at her daily briefing when asked her about the speaker’s joke.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote a letter to President Biden smacking him for being “off the hook” on the debt limit negotiations and urging his team to hold a meeting between the two by the end of the week to agree on both
Jean-Pierre reiterated the administration’s requirement that McCarthy and his Republican outline their budget and the spending cuts they want to see to reduce the nation’s debt.
“He’s speaking to the Americans here,” she said. “Is he serious or not? We are. We showed our values by releasing the President’s budget.’
McCarthy’s blow came days after Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who’d stopped going to Democratic luncheons who is close to McCarthy, called her former lunch companions “old guys eat jelly,” according to a report.
The comments followed a heated letter from McCarthy earlier this week. The two men have not met to discuss the budget dispute for two months.
Biden and the White House have called for Congress to approve another hike beyond the $31.4 trillion level – noting that Congress has already approved spending that has left the nation indebted. They also want the House GOP to release its budget plan after the House Budget Committee called for job requirements for welfare recipients and outlined other plans.
McCarthy and the House Republicans, who presented him with his speaker’s gavel, are demanding that the Biden administration cut domestic spending to follow a hike.
McCarthy wants talks to start now, before the nation faces potential fiscal disaster as early as this summer.
“With each passing day, I am incredibly concerned that you are endangering an already fragile economy by insisting on your extreme position of refusing to negotiate meaningful changes,” McCarthy Biden wrote in the letter.
‘Mister. President, simply put, you’re on the clock… Please have your team contact me by the end of this week to schedule our next meeting.’
McCarthy says he wants to bring domestic spending back to pre-inflation levels. Biden has warned he will not accept cuts to Medicare, Social Security or health services for the poor.
McCarthy had previously attempted to nudge Biden into talks, citing the president’s own comments about working with political opponents.
“I’m sorry, he needs to change his behavior, go back to who he said he is and you need to sit down,” he said.
Biden and McCarthy met for a lunch in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day, but have not met on the budget for almost two months
