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McCarthy says he'll meet with Biden Monday after 'productive' debt ceiling call

After he spoke to President Joe Biden by phone on Sunday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that he thinks both sides can find some "common ground."
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WASHINGTON — After he spoke to President Joe Biden by phone Sunday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said they have agreed to meet in person Monday afternoon to work toward a deal on lifting the debt ceiling.

McCarthy and Biden discussed the debt ceiling in a call Sunday while the president was flying back on Air Force One from the G-7 summit in Japan, after negotiations last week between senior White House aides and House Republicans failed to break an impasse.

"My discussion with the President I think was productive," McCarthy told NBC News after their call, adding that the president had requested to meet in person Monday and he accepted the offer.

"I think we can solve some of these problems," McCarthy said. "But I've been very clear to him from the very beginning, we have to spend less money than we spent last year."

McCarthy said both sides are "still apart," but he and the president had decided during their call to get their negotiators back together.

“Let them brief up the president, let him get some sleep. And he wanted to get together personally tomorrow, I agreed to that, we’d do that sometime in the afternoon," he said. "Time is of the essence.”

A White House official confirmed the upcoming Monday meeting at the White House between Biden and McCarthy and said that their staffs will also reconvene at 6 p.m. Sunday evening to discuss remaining issues.

McCarthy praised White House negotiators for engaging in “very professional” discussions.

“I have great respect for the individuals on the president’s team,” he said. “They’re bright, they’re articulate, they know exactly what they’re doing. We may philosophically disagree, but we have respect for one another, because we’re coming from a place of principles. And when you come from a place of principles, normally at the end of the day, you can find common ground and keep your principles at the same time.”

The call between Biden and McCarthy came shortly after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that early June is a “hard deadline” for the federal government to raise the debt ceiling and warned that bills will go unpaid if Congress fails to reach a deal before the U.S. runs out of money.

“I indicated in my last letter to Congress that we expect to be unable to pay all of our bills in early June and possibly as soon as June 1. And I will continue to update Congress, but I certainly haven’t changed my assessment,” Yellen said. “So I think that that’s a hard deadline.”

During a press conference in Japan on Sunday, the president urged Republicans to “move from their extreme positions,” which he criticized as “frankly unacceptable,” in his opening remarks.

“It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no bipartisan deal to be made solely solely on their partisan terms,” he said. “They have to move as well.”

Republicans returned to the debt ceiling negotiating table Friday night after temporarily putting a hold on talks with the White House, which they said were “not productive.”

Part of the hang-up in negotiations is that House Republicans want to force major spending cuts that are opposed by Biden and dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Democrats are reluctant to accept a spending limit that’s lower than current levels, a source familiar with the party’s stance told NBC News last week. The party may prefer to maintain existing levels, even if it means a new spending deal fails and the government runs on autopilot through a continuing resolution.

Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., who was tapped by McCarthy to lead negotiations with the White House, told reporters Sunday that “a lot of progress” has been made in discussions on the debt ceiling.

“If you go through the laundry list of about 50 items, we have made a lot of progress,” Graves said. “Understanding one another’s positions, understanding red lines. And so I think that we have really been able to come close, much closer than we were when we started.”