Debt limit negotiators paused today’s talks, leaving the room after appearing to hit a snag

Graves: “Until people are willing to have reasonable conversations about how you can actually move forward and do the right thing, then we’re not gonna sit here and talk to ourselves” pic.twitter.com/HMPIU10zIM

— Ellis Kim (@elliskkim) May 19, 2023

Proxies for Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden have been meeting for days, and a sense of optimism had bubbled up that a deal could be reached as soon as this weekend, in time for votes next week. But Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., one of McCarthy’s chief negotiators, told reporters after leaving a meeting at the Capitol on Friday morning that things weren’t going well.

“We decided to press pause because it’s just not productive,” Graves said, adding he didn’t know yet if the negotiating team planned to meet again.

[The leverage here still belongs to McCarthy. The House passed a debt-ceiling increase; the Senate can just take up that bill if they’re worried about a default. The more the White House blows this up to a crisis, the more that leverage increases. They will have to put real spending reductions on the table if they want to raise this debt ceiling. — Ed]