inDemocrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal suggested there would be a “huge backlash… in the streets” if the White House agreed to budget cuts in negotiations to raise the debt ceiling.
Recent reports on the budget negotiations between the White House and Speaker McCarthy, before the current debt limits run out at the start of June, have suggested that the Biden administration is “dug in” on raising spending and taxes by less than they would have hoped, instead of budget cuts. Despite this, both sides have maintained that talks have been “productive.”
Any move to slash the budget would certainly be met with fierce opposition from the Democrats, according to Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who had some choice words to share with CNN on Tuesday morning.
“I think there would be a huge backlash from our entire House Democratic caucus, certainly the progressives, but also in the streets,” Jayapal said. “You know, I mean I think that this is, it’s important that we don’t take steps back from the very strong agenda that the President himself shepherded and led over the last two years.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal: There will be "a huge backlash…in the streets" if the White House agrees to spending cuts. pic.twitter.com/W0kgsN0EAz
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 23, 2023
Republican Representative Dan Bishop responded to Jayapal’s concerning statement in a tweet. “Threatening violence in the streets because of spending cuts? I see that the Democrats are being reasonable…” Bishop quipped.
The Blaze’s Auron Macintyre added that the comments from Jayapal about a “backlash” really came as no surprise, given that “the Democrats wield violent street mobs like a political weapon on a regular basis so this is just a casual acknowledgement of the obvious.”
Threatening violence in the streets because of spending cuts?
I see that the Democrats are being reasonable… https://t.co/KN2EFOUmMt
— Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) May 23, 2023
Tbf the Democrats wield violent street mobs like a political weapon on a regular basis so this is just a casual acknowledgment of the obvious https://t.co/zC8XjtczyV
— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) May 23, 2023
By Tuesday morning, after the bilateral meeting between Biden and McCarthy on Monday evening, the first since February, McCarthy was still optimistic that a deal could be done by June 1st, even though there were still “red lines” that the White House was sticking to, such as “spending more money next year than we spent this year.”
“We could still finish this by June…we’re trying to condense everything in a short time frame. The House passed the bill. The Senate never passed a bill. So now it’s more difficult, because of what else we have to negotiate from a lot of different perspectives. But we can still finish in time,” McCarthy concluded.
