- McConnell and Senate Republicans repeatedly blocked attempts to raise the debt ceiling.
- On Wednesday, McConnell reversed course and conceded a 2-month lift of the country’s debt limit.
- McConnell said Republicans will not help raise the debt limit again in December.
After reversing his position on a debt-limit extension, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Friday railing against Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s handling of the nation’s debt crisis.
“Whether through weakness or an intentional effort to bully his own members, Senator Schumer marched the nation to the doorstep of disaster. Embarrassingly, it got to the point where Senators on both sides were pleading for leadership to fill the void and protect our citizens. I stepped up,” McConnell said in the letter.
For the last several weeks, McConnell mobilized Senate Republicans to block any measure that would raise the country’s debt limit, insisting that Senate Democrats raise it alone using a lengthy budget reconciliation process. On Wednesday, he reversed course and offered Democrats a 2-month lift of the debt ceiling, preventing a default on the nation’s debts until then.
-Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) October 8, 2021
However, McConnell vowed in his letter to Biden that Republicans would not provide assistance in December to raise the debt ceiling.
“Your lieutenants on Capitol Hill now have the time they claimed they lacked to address the debt ceiling through standalone reconciliation, and all the tools to do it. They cannot invent another crisis and ask for my help,” McConnell said in the letter.
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