OAN’s Brooke Mallory
12:28 PM – Sunday, May 21, 2023
President Joe Biden stated on Sunday that the president should bear no responsibility if the United States were to default on its debt in the near future.
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Biden made the assertion during a press appearance in Hiroshima, Japan, where he had traveled for meetings with G-7 nations. After the White House insisted for months that there would be no debate on the matter, Republicans in Congress finally drove Biden to the negotiation table. In his latest argument, Biden claims that some “MAGA Republicans” are trying to start a default in order to destroy the economy before Biden’s reelection bid.
“I’ve done my part,” Biden said, adding that “it’s time for the other side to move their team positions because much of what they were proposed is simply quite frankly, unacceptable.”
“Mr. President, on the debt limit, you said already, ‘I’ve done my part.’ Do you think if there’s a breach, nobody can blame you?” asked Peter Doocy, a Fox News journalist.
“Of course no one will blame me, I know you won’t, you’ll be saying Biden did a wonderful job,” Biden said jokingly.
“Would you be blameless in a default situation?” Doocy asked.
“On the merits, based on what I’ve offered, I would be blameless,” Biden said in response. “On the politics of it, no one would be blameless. And by the way, that’s one of the, one of the things some [people] are contemplating. Well, I gotta be careful here. I think there are some MAGA Republicans in the House who know the damage that it would do to the economy and because I am president, and presidents are responsible for everything, Biden would take the blame. And that’s the one way to make sure Biden’s not re-elected.”
However, according to legal experts, Biden’s contention that the 14th Amendment gave him the right to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling is not likely to hold up in court.
Although Biden conceded that the legal dispute would make the action pointless, he claimed that the appeals procedure would push back the default date of a final ruling significantly.
The “discretionary” side of the ledger, or the portion of spending that Congress controls through the appropriations process each year, is where Republicans want to make their cuts, according to a GOP source.
“A responsible, bipartisan budget agreement remains possible if both sides negotiate in good faith and recognize that neither side will get everything it wants,” said a White House spokesperson on Friday.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) came down on Biden on Sunday for “scaremongering” about the national debt and claimed that the president is “willing to tank the economy” rather than make any deals or negotiate with Republicans.
“It really is unfortunate to see how Joe Biden is approaching this job. It’s all politics all the time, and he consistently goes to the hard left. He’s off in Hiroshima right now, in Japan. He should be in Washington, D.C. He should be sitting down and working out a deal, working out a compromise,” Cruz said.
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