Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is working to present himself and Republicans backing his debt deal bill as the adults in the room, affecting a paternal tone while appearing on GOP-friendly news outlets to preach fiscal responsibility to Democrats he characterizes as wayward spenders.
This weekend McCarthy used Maria Bartiromo‘s Fox News platform to pitch his case for running the multi-trillion dollar U.S. economy on the same principles as family budget, even if families can’t issue bonds and print money.
@SpeakerMcCarthy reacts to Biden’s claim his debt plan is “wacko” on @SundayFutures this morning:
— SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) April 23, 2023
“He won’t even negotiate for more than 80 days, he is now putting the country in default. We’re the only ones being responsible and sensible about this” pic.twitter.com/U79zIIAFBC
McCarthy complains to Bartiromo that President Biden won’t negotiate with him, painting Biden’s reluctance as irresponsible. On his side, Biden has asked McCarthy to present a budget as a starting point for negotiations, as the Biden White House has presented a budget. McCarthy has not complied with this request.
[Note: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has succinctly described the position McCarthy’s budget-less negotiation ploy puts Democrats in: “I don’t know whether reasonable people would conclude that we should be negotiating against ourselves,” Jeffries said, speaking of Democrats. “That’s not a logical place to be.”]
Instead of a budget, McCarthy has proposed a bill with unspecific spending cuts, the key goals of which are returning domestic and military spending to 2022 levels and capping growth at 1% annually. Biden has characterized the Republican position as containing “wacko notions.”
McCarthy’s choice of Bartiromo’s show to dispute the “wacko” accusation has some unusual optics given that legal discovery in the Dominion-Fox lawsuit spotlighted Bartiromo’s tendency to let her guests expound — to Fox’s eventual financial peril — without questioning the veracity or content of their statements.
In one of the most oft-repeated moments of Fox election coverage related to the lawsuit, Bartiromo had a now famous quote where she encouraged lawyer Sidney Powell to present election conspiracy theories. Here is the exchange from November 2020, as cited in the lawsuit.
Bartiromo: Sidney, we talked about the Dominion software. I know that there were voting irregularities. Tell me about that.
Powell: That’s putting it mildly…That is where the fraud took place, where they were flipping votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist.”
On Sunday, Bartiromo asked McCarthy: “Did you threaten to allow the nation to default?”
McCarthy, speaking slowly, smiling, replied: “No, we’re the only ones in Washington that are actually putting a responsible plan out that will raise the debt limit…” Bartiromo then gives McCarthy one minute and thirteen seconds, uninterrupted, to question Biden’s “ideas” and to sell his GOP plan.
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