President Joe Biden said Sunday that Republicans in the U.S. House must move off their "extreme positions" on the now-stalled talks over raising America's debt limit and that there would be no agreement to avert a catastrophic default only on their terms.
“It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal to be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms," Biden said in Hiroshima, Japan, where he attended the Group of Seven summit.
Biden said he had done his part in trying to raising the debt ceiling so the U.S. government can keep paying its bills. “Now it’s time for the other side to move from their extreme position,” he said.
Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., were expected to talk later Sunday.
GOP lawmakers are holding tight to demands for sharp spending cuts, rejecting the alternatives proposed by the White House for reducing deficits.
For months, Biden had refused to engage in talks over the debt limit, insisting that Congress was trying to use the borrowing limit vote as leverage to extract other policy priorities.
But with the U.S. Treasury Department saying that it could run out of cash as soon as June 1 and Republicans putting their own legislation on the table, the White House launched talks on a budget deal that could accompany an increase in the debt limit.
