March 18, 2024

Most Awkward Dinner Ever: Trump To Dine With Ryan Day After Siding With Dems On Debt Ceiling

President Donald Trump will host Speaker Paul Ryan at the White House residence Thursday evening, according to the president’s daily schedule, the day after Trump took a deal that may favor the Democrats on debt ceiling negotiations.

Trump met with congressional leaders of both parties Wednesday, and decided to back a three-month lift of the debt ceiling, combined with funding for Hurricane Harvey relief and a continuing resolution to fund the government. The plan was pitched by New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, upsetting both Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“House Speaker Paul Ryan is furious,” Axios reported Thursday, citing to a person very close to him. Ryan said the Democrat’s idea for combining Harvey aid, the debt ceiling increase and temporary budgeting “ridiculous” and “unworkable” earlier Wednesday.

McConnell, Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin favored raising the debt ceiling for longer than three months. GOP leadership pitched Trump on an 18-month, and later a six-month, raising of the debt ceiling at the Wednesday meeting, but Schumer and fellow Democrat California Sen. Nancy Pelosi refused to accept.

“In the meeting, the President and Congressional leadership agreed to pass aid for Harvey, an extension of the debt limit, and a continuing resolution both to December 15, all together,” Schumer and Pelosi said in a statement Wednesday.

“We had a very good meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. We agreed to a three-month extension on debt ceiling, which they consider to be sacred — very important — always we’ll agree on debt ceiling automatically because of the importance of it,” Trump told reporters Wednesday aboard Air Force One.

“So we have an extension, which will go out to December 15th.  That will include the debt ceiling, that will include the CRs, and it will include Harvey — the amount of money to be determined, but it will include — because everyone is in favor obviously of taking care of that situation. So we all very much agree,” Trump said.

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Source: The Daily Caller

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