Hakeem Jeffries: We Will Pass Debt Ceiling Backup Plan if McCarthy Deal Fails

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he guarantees the Democrats will pass a discharge petition to lift the debt ceiling if House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) deal fails to pass.

Partial transcript as follows:

BRENNAN: Okay. Well, Jim Himes of Connecticut, not a progressive, said this morning, if this vote fails, I think we’re going to see the kind of market reaction that none of us want to see. Can you deliver a vote? Can you deliver someone like him? Can you deliver a vote that wins on the first try? He’s talking about a market crash.

JEFFRIES: Well, we have to of course, avoid a market crash. We have to avoid tanking the economy. We have to avoid a default. The reason why we’re in this situation from the very beginning is that extreme MAGA Republicans made the determination that they were going to use the possibility of default to hold the economy and everyday Americans hostage. Period, full stop.

BRENNAN: Understood but that’s- that’s where we are right now. And that negotiation happened.

JEFFRIES: That’s right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You negotiated with them. So here we are.

JEFFRIES:  And that’s why I’m thankful that President Biden has reached a resolution. And that’s also why I’m thankful that notwithstanding the fact that they were trying to jam 10 year spending caps down the throats of the American people, we were able to apparently match up a freeze in spending consistent with 2023 levels- 2023 levels, not the 2022 levels, that’s what they were trying to extract, and thankful that we avoided a catastrophic default.

BRENNAN: There’s some disagreement on those but we don’t have the text. So we will just have to wait on that. But I want to ask about the backup plan. 213 Democrats voted for this discharge petition, this idea of being able to vote to lift the debt ceiling, even if Republicans- if the Republican leader doesn’t do it. You’d need five Republicans. Can you do that? Can you guarantee people that we will not see a default?

JEFFRIES: Yes.

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