Right, which is why the government raises the debt ceiling time after time after time because everybody of both parties, traditionally, is pretty invested in making sure the government can pay its bills and that it doesn’t default on its debt. If Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, the United States can’t borrow any more. And so Congress is going to have to pass, and then the White House is going to have to sign, a bill raising that limit. catie edmondsonĪt some point over the summer, we don’t know exactly when, but we’re estimating maybe by June, the government is going to hit the limit of how much money it can borrow in order to fund government operations. I know it is a complicated subject, a slightly academic subject.

michael barbaroĪnd just remind us of the basics of that fight. It was on the fight over raising the debt ceiling. And it was on a really high-stakes issue. We saw an early test balloon floated, essentially. And over the past few days, it feels like we’ve started to get an answer. And as we know, McCarthy ultimately won that fight by making those concessions, the most notable of them being that any one member of the House could call a vote to basically fire McCarthy as Speaker at any time, which effectively put him at the mercy of the same wing of his party who he had the hardest time winning over.Īnd the question coming out of all of that was whether Speaker McCarthy could ever truly rule this unruly group of Republicans or whether he was basically doomed as Speaker from the start. And that fight pitted McCarthy against the most hardline conservatives in the House who wanted to extract concessions from him before they would vote for him as Speaker. And Kevin McCarthy and the new, very narrow House Republican majority had just finished a grueling fight over the speakership. Today, for Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the looming crisis over the US debt ceiling may soon require him to make a painful choice - prevent a financial catastrophe or keep his job.Ĭongressional reporter Catie Edmondson explains.Ĭatie, the last time we had you on the show, it was back in January.

michael barbaroįrom “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro.

Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email with any questions. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. This transcript was created using speech recognition software. debt ceiling may soon require the House speaker to make a painful choice. Transcript Kevin McCarthy’s Debt Ceiling Dilemma The looming crisis over the U.S.

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