WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden’s meeting with the top four congressional leaders scheduled for Friday has been postponed until next week, two sources told NBC News.
“Staff will continue to work and all directors have agreed to meet early next week,” a White House spokesman said.
A source familiar with the meetings adds: “This is a positive development. The meetings are progressing. Staff continue to meet and it was not the right time to bring it back to the principals.»
Congressional leaders met at the White House on Tuesday, in a meeting that was described as «tense and serious» by a source in the room and that did not result in a deal. Congressional and White House leadership staff have been meeting daily ever since.
Recent meetings and staff-level talks in the White House with a divided Congress have yielded little progress and no apparent path to resolve a potential default that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned could come as soon as 1 of June.
Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries remain adamant that the threat of default, which would be catastrophic for the US economy,
Meanwhile, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is not budging on his refusal to extend the debt limit without conditions, demanding spending cuts. He has the support of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even as both Republican leaders say they don’t want the country to default.
A wild card in the already tense standoff is former President Donald Trump, the de facto leader of the Republican Party, who added fuel to the fire this week by inciting an unprecedented default unless Democrats cave in to the GOP’s political demands and cut spending on a CNN City Hall.
This is a developing story. Please check for updates.