President Joe Biden once again snapped at a reporter when asked about the debt ceiling crisis, this time in Japan.
During the G-7 summit in Hiroshima on Saturday, Biden was asked about the potential crisis should Congress fail to come to an agreement.
Biden tells a reporter to “shush up” while being grilled on the debt limit.pic.twitter.com/4i5usSP4qc
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 20, 2023
“I still believe we’ll be able to avoid a default and we’ll get something decent done,” he responded. “This — this goes in stages.”
An Australian reporter later pressed the president about the situation, to which Biden told him to “shush up, okay?”
“I’ve been in these negotiations before,” Biden said. “What happens is the first meetings weren’t all that progressive. The second ones were. The third one was. And then, what happens is they — the carriers go back to the principals and say, ‘This is what we’re thinking about.’ And then, people put down new claims.”
This isn’t the first time the president has been riled up by being asked about the debt ceiling crisis. Earlier this month, Biden took a few questions from reporters during a press briefing in the White House when one of them asked whether he had agreed to a deal with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on any specific areas in the federal budget for spending cuts.
“He’s got a specific answer, he got a specific answer,” Biden clapped back. “You didn’t listen either, so why should I answer the question? We cut the deficit by $160 billion. Billion, B-I-L-L-I-O-N. Dollars.”
This comes after administration officials revealed earlier this month that Biden has no plans to negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit, even after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that Congress may only have until June 1 to avoid a disastrous economic downturn.
The approach reflects the White House’s belief that they cannot create a model for the opposition to use the debt ceiling as a political negotiating chip. It also shows continued confidence in the fact that Biden still has the upper hand in a debt ceiling staredown and that a crisis point was only a matter of when, not if, the two sides would come to blows.
For months, the president has vowed not to engage in debt ceiling negotiations, calling Republicans’ demands for concessions “hostage taking” that might damage the country’s global reputation and economic stability.
