On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese argued that the uncertainty of whether the debt limit will be raised should be removed and refused to commit to whether President Joe Biden would accept a debt limit increase negotiated by Democrats with Republicans that goes against Biden’s position that there shouldn’t be conditions to raising the limit.
Co-host Kaitlan Collins asked, “So, Brian, is the White House’s position still that there should be no conditions attached to this?”
Deese responded, “Yes, that’s our position. And again, it’s consistent with how Congress has approached this issue historically as well. This has happened under Republican presidents, it’s happened under Democratic presidents. It needs to happen again.”
Collins then asked, “Yeah, we saw how, obviously, Republicans raised it several times under former President Trump, but if Democrats negotiate a deal here with Republicans, is President Biden going to accept that, going to sign that?”
Deese answered, “Look, [there are] a lot of hypotheticals. I just want to be very clear, this is what needs to happen, we need to see the debt limit raised, we need to take the specter of that uncertainty out of view and we need to focus on how we can keep this economic recovery going. As I said, good news on that front, good news for the American people, we’re seeing prices come down, wages — real wages up, a lot of investment opportunity in America. That’s where we need to train our focus and we need to take this uncertainty off the table.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett