White House hits back at McCarthy dig at Biden’s age: ‘Able to pick out his own Starbucks’
Naomi Lim
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The White House hit back at House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) after the top House Republican indirectly criticized President Joe Biden‘s age.
“I think the president is able to pick out his own Starbucks,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday.
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“What we need from Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans is to see their budget. Where’s their budget?” she said. “We want to see what they value. … It’s been three weeks, and we have seen nothing from the House Republicans.”
McCarthy said Thursday afternoon that he would bring “soft food” to the White House if he were invited by Biden, 80, to discuss raising the debt ceiling.
“I don’t know what more I can do,” McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill. “I would bring lunch to the White House. I would make it soft food, if that’s what he wants. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it takes to meet.”
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The pair’s standoff over the debt ceiling, which the Treasury reached in January, is becoming increasingly tense before the country is expected to default on its loans this summer. Biden continues to call on Republicans to pass a clean debt ceiling bill and propose a counterbudget, while McCarthy seeks spending concessions from the Democrats.
“On the debt limit, President Biden is clear that the full faith and credit of the United States is non-negotiable,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates wrote in a memo Thursday. “We are glad to see that Speaker McCarthy agrees with us that the debt limit is a separate issue from the budget, and we hope that means he will move promptly to remove the threat of default.”
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