Sanders dismisses McCarthy remarks blaming him for breakdown in debt talks
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday dismissed remarks from Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that accused the White House of bending to the senator and other progressives amid negotiations over the debt ceiling.
McCarthy said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that, “when Bernie Sanders or AOC says something, the White House shifts to the other way,” referring to Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
MSNBC’s Ali Velshi relayed the comment to Sanders, asking, “Kevin McCarthy is now directly calling you out by name, just seconds ago, on Fox News, for being the reason that the discussion about this has broken down. Your response?”
“Well, I doubt that very much,” Sanders responded during his appearance on Velshi’s show.
“But to the degree that the White House says to these Republicans, ‘Stop your hypocrisy. Stop defending the billionaire class from paying their fair share of taxes while you want to cut programs that the elderly the children, the sick and the poor need,’ if I have any role — if progressives have any role in that, that’s great,” Sanders said.
McCarthy and Biden had a phone call Sunday as the president made his way back from the Group of Seven summit in Japan, having already scrapped plans for a longer international trip in order to head back to Washington for the negotiations.
Staff-level talks are set to resume Sunday, and the president and the Speaker are set to meet on Monday as June 1 approaches — the date by which the Treasury Department has said it could run out of ways to avoid default.
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