“I believe this is, without question, the Tea Party downgrade,” Kerry said. “This is the Tea Party downgrade because a minority of people in the House of Representatives countered the will of even many Republicans in the United States senate who were prepared to do a bigger deal, to do $4.7 trillion dollars, $4 trillion dollars, have a mix of reductions and reforms in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, but also recognize that we needed to do some revenue.”

Kerry said the key issue was the long-term debt caused by Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

“What we need is a Washington that stops this bickering,” he continued. “Let’s get rid of these hard positions that I noticed even in Speaker Boehner’s comments about the downgrade, politicizing it in a sense, sort of blaming it on the Democrats and the lack of the decisions.”