On Thursday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) stated that if there is a debt default, it’s on President Joe Biden because Republicans will have spent months trying to talk with Biden about a deal to raise the debt ceiling and Biden refuses to compromise and noted that he opposed increasing the debt ceiling under the Trump administration.
Roy said, “Look, what’s happening right now is what should happen. The President of the United States is actually sitting down and negotiating, despite what he said, because, of course, he is. We’re a coequal branch of government, and he has to sit down. … Speaker McCarthy is doing the right thing. He’s telling the President that, yes, you are going to sit down and negotiate. Yes, we are going to change the system, stop spending money we don’t have without getting constraints in place, and that we’re going to do that and we’re not going to play games with the debt ceiling with respect to the debt markets. And if you’re going to actually say that you think you’re going to default on the debt, that’s on you, Mr. President. You have the choice. We’re sitting here in January, now February, telling you where we need to go. So, sit down with us, and we’ll try to solve the problem.”
After host Amna Nawaz asked about the debt ceiling increases under the Trump presidency, Roy stated, “I voted against those debt ceiling increases. And I was pretty critical of President Trump, because I thought we should have gone further in terms of the kinds of spending [restraints] that needed to be put in place. Look, I’m an equal opportunity basher of big spenders in Washington. I’m not a party guy when it comes to that. What I am is a believer that we should stand up for the American people who sent us here to change the place and not just say, hey, we’re going to just lift the debt ceiling. You don’t get to do that at home. I don’t get to do that at home. The American businessman or businesswoman right now watching this don’t get to do that. So why do we do it? We ought to change the way things work around here. That was part of what the speaker’s debate was about in early January. Now we’re doing that.”
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