‘We’re Team Normal’
Jeffries contrasts congressional Dems, President Biden against "extreme MAGA Republicans"
The recent passage of legislation to raise the federal government's debt limit in exchange for some modest cuts in federal spending is an example of Democrats in Washington DC governing as adults in contrast to “extreme MAGA Republicans,” according to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
President Biden earlier this month arranged a high-stakes deal with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — nearly too late — as McCarthy and House Republicans insisted on using the federal debt ceiling as a political weapon, threatening a government default and a wider economic meltdown if Biden and the Democrats didn't accede to a raft of right-wing political priorities.
In the end, Biden maneuvered the talks to win the debt-ceiling increase in exchange for what are much more modest cuts in federal spending than what McCarthy and Republicans first envisioned.
“But, of course, it took leadership to bring that about because we were in a hostage-taking situation,” said Jeffries, who took over leading House Democrats in January. “There were extreme MAGA Republicans who basically said, ‘You know what? We can use the threat of default to try to extract painful, deep cuts that we know we can’t otherwise achieve through the normal legislative process,’ because we know that Democrats, President Biden, folks in the House and the Senate, we’re ‘Team Reasonable,’ we’re ‘Team Normal,’ we’re ‘Team Get Stuff Done,’ and we’re dealing with ‘Team Extreme' who might just be willing to default and crash the economy.
“But President Biden found the path. He held the line, but then defended these basic principles that were important to us, while, you know, finding a way — finding enough common ground to get something done,” Jeffries added.
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