House Speaker Kevin McCarthy: Debt ceiling negotiations have made no progress

And joining us now, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Mr. Speaker, great to have you on to highlight this here first on what's contained in your letter you saw. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. We can see what little tremors do in the financial system. We've seen that the last couple of weeks, which makes us think what a true impasse would mean if something happens here. Given what you're saying and given the response from the White House press secretary, it doesn't seem like we've made any progress since that meeting you had two months ago with President Biden.

We've made no progress. And Joe, you know me. I'm not always an optimist. I'm not now. They asked to pass just to raise the debt ceiling. Well, they control the Senate. They can't pass it in the Senate.

Even Democrats in the House tell me they would not vote for that. So that's off the table. The president and I met more than two months ago. Since that time, he has misled the whole Congress and the country. When we were together at the prayer breakfast, he says we're going to sit down the next day, told the entire Congress that we're going to meet. At the Democratic retreat, he told the Democrats that we were planning meetings. He's never had one meeting.

It's been more than two months. Time is ticking. Now I'm very concerned about where we are. Look, we've came with an idea of being very reasonable, responsible to limit, save and grow. We have ideas that Democrats have for limit the amount of spending. That's what Joe Manchin says. Outgrowth, non-defense, just cap how fast you can grow.

Find savings. We have billions of dollars of unspent COVID money that's that dormant for more than two years. You can grab some of that back. Find our ability to grow this economy through the economy, through energy. Maybe you do something when it comes to securing our border. Maybe you do work requirements, things that he voted for as a senator, which Bill Clinton put in, for those with no dependence. These are ideas that we have more than four trillions in savings.

And now the economy is even a worse position because of his extreme spending levels, what they took with all Democrats in power. I am more concerned than I have ever been to be able to get this debt ceiling done because he refuses to meet with anybody and then misleads the American public and the markets aren't seeing that. In the letter you say I have no interest in brinkmanship, but it seems like both sides are at least at this point ready to take it there. And do you see any room for negotiation at all at this point? What if the president, every time he talks to him, what if he says, clean debt. We did it during Trump two or three times, clean raise, Democrats gave you a clean raise. We want a clean raise. Joe, we never did that.

Joe, we never did a clean during Trump. You can talk to anybody there, you can talk to Nancy Pelosi. What they did was we'll raise the debt ceiling if you add more spending. It was an agreement between the two. Joe Biden did this in 2011, the Joe Biden agreement talks. Every time you have a discussion, 74 percent of the American public wants us to sit down. We're now at a more extreme position that we've ever been with the Democrats in power.

They are spending more than in the 50-year average. Normally we only spend about 21 percent of GDP. They're up to 23.7. We just had the Congressional Budget Office tell us we're going to have to pay more than 10.5 trillion, just an interest in the next 10 years. But in the last 80 years, we have only had to pay 9 trillion interest.

We are at a brink point. We now have a banking crisis because of interest rates going up, because of the Democrats' extreme spending levels. The Republicans are not playing brinkmanship. I'm not interested in that. I want to sit down. I went to the president at the beginning of February. I told him at the very upfront, everything's on the table.

Let's talk where we can find ways. Let's see where we can grow this economy. From the very beginning, he told the American public after that meeting, even tweeting, yes, we can work together. He told the Congress, yes, we're going to meet. He told the Democrats at their retreat, oh, I'm going to meet with Kevin. The only difference is he won't ever schedule that meeting. He wants to create a crisis here.

And that's what I'm concerned about. The American public has to be warned based upon what this president's doing. If they think they can just raise the debt limit, then why don't they do it in the Senate tomorrow? Because the Democrats won't vote for it either.

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