Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that early June is a «deadline» for the federal government to raise the debt ceiling and warned that the bills will not be paid if Congress can’t reach an agreement before of the United States running out of money in an exclusive interview on «Meet the Press.»
“I indicated in my last letter to Congress that we expect to be unable to pay all of our bills by early June and possibly as soon as June 1. And I’ll continue to update Congress, but I certainly haven’t changed my assessment, Yellen said. «So I think that’s a tough deadline.»
Asked by NBC News’ Chuck Todd if the country can extend until June 15 before defaulting on its debts, Yellen said the possibility is «pretty low.»
«Well, there’s always uncertainty about tax revenues and expenditures,» he said. «So it’s hard to be absolutely sure about this, but my assessment is that the chances of getting to June 15, while we can pay all of our bills, are pretty low.»
Yellen warned that some of the country’s bills will not be paid if the debt ceiling is not raised.
“Well, we take the debt ceiling seriously as a restriction on our ability to pay bills that are due,” he said. «And my assumption is that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, there will be tough decisions to make about which bills don’t get paid.»
White House negotiators and Republicans remain deadlocked on a deal to raise the debt ceiling after weeks of negotiations. House Republicans want to force through major spending cuts that are opposed by Biden and congressional Democrats, so it is unlikely to pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Biden has continued to monitor negotiations on a bipartisan budget framework and has insisted on the need for Congress to act to prevent default while he attends the G-7 summit in Japan, a White House official said Saturday. to journalists.
The president directed his team to coordinate with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to schedule a call for Sunday morning after their G-7 meetings, the official said.
The president opened his press conference at the G-7 by urging the Republicans to «get out of their extreme positions» which he criticized as «frankly unacceptable.»
“It is time for Republicans to accept that there is no such thing as a bipartisan deal that is done solely on their party’s terms,” he said. «They also have to move.»
McCarthy tweeted Saturday night: «Biden does not believe there is a single dollar of savings in the federal government budget.»
«I would rather be the first president in history to default on debt than risk upsetting the radical socialists who are calling the shots for the Democrats right now,» McCarthy added.
Republicans returned to the debt ceiling negotiating table Friday night after temporarily pausing talks with the White House that they said were «unproductive.» Rep. Garret Graves, R-Los Angeles, whom McCarthy appointed to lead negotiations with White House staff, told reporters they had «a frank conversation about realistic numbers, a realistic way forward, and something that really changes the trajectory of the economy of this country». the problem of spending and debt”.
Molly Roecker, Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner and Sally Broston contributed.