Merkley: Debt Bill Got Democrats to Vote for ‘Republican Agenda’ — Biden’s Claiming He Won by Shrinking Size of Loss

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) stated that the debt limit bill has “a whole series of proposals out of sync with the Democratic Party” and contains “all majors that came out of the Republican agenda.”

Merkley said, “Well, the president approached this with a vision that there were two windows: One is the Republicans run the economy off the cliff or second of all that he accept a whole series of proposals out of sync with the Democratic Party. He’s claiming victory by diminishing the size of those impacts that are out of sync with our party. But nonetheless, it was all majors that came out of the Republican agenda. This was not a negotiation where you say, hey, for example, the biggest contributor to our deficits were the Bush tax cuts and the Trump tax cuts, and therefore, some of addressing the deficit has to come from tax fairness. That did not happen, nothing out of our side. It was all out of fundamental programs that are going to affect the very foundations for families to thrive with health care, housing, and education.”

Later, he added that “the majority of the votes are coming from Democrats for an agenda that is the Republican agenda.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett