Biden Floats Debt Ceiling Negotiations as Republicans Refute His Social Security Claim

President Joe Biden suggested Thursday that he was open to negotiating with Republicans over the debt ceiling after they rejected his claim at the State of the Union that they were seeking social security and medicare cuts.

After saying at the State of the Union that “some Republcians” want to “sunset” the programs and “other Republicans” wish to cut them, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) vehemently shook his head in disagreement. At the same time, jeers rained from the GOP side of the chamber, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) shouting, “liar!”

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Biden recounted the heated moment while speaking at the University of Tampa in Florida Thursday.

“I said, ‘That means you all are for keeping social security?’ They all stood up and said, ‘Yea.’ I said, ‘Well, we got a deal,'” Biden recalled. “Sounded like they agreed to take these cuts off the table. I sure hope so; I really mean it.” 

Last month Biden laid out the contours of what he saw as the looming debt standoff, floating tax hikes that Democrats would likely support and suggesting that Republicans would seek cuts to social security and Medicare to offset the $31.7 trillion debt ceiling that the country hit last month.

However, McCarthy has said multiple times that House Republcians do not want to slash social security or Medicare and reiterated cuts to the programs “are off the table” ahead of the State of the Union, though he suggested Republcians do seek other spending cuts.

After a meeting with Biden at the White House last week, McCarthy expressed optimism that the two sides could find “common ground.”

Biden said Thursday that McCarthy “has been reasonable in terms of discussion with me so far,” before expressing his openness to negotiating the upcoming budget proposals.

“I said, ‘Look, why don’t we just – I think it’s the first week of March – why don’t we just lay out our budgets, you put yours down, I put mine down, and our people sit and compare them. Decide where we can make a compromise if we can make a compromise,” the president recalled.

He claimed his budget proposal would “lower the deficit this year by $2 trillion.”

His current posture seems to contrast with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s stance last month that the debt ceiling should be addressed “without conditions.”

“We have been very, very clear about that. We are not going to be negotiating over the debt ceiling,” she said.