House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made another attempt at blaming President Joe Biden for lack of progress on the debt limit on Thursday afternoon—but in the process, he showed himself. McCarthy’s supposed plea to Biden to sit down and negotiate came with
a gratuitous insult to the president, one that revealed, yet again, that McCarthy is not leading House Republicans. He’s being led by the far right of his caucus after he had to beg, plead, and make concessions to get their votes for speaker. And he’s taking his idea of a “joke” from the worst cesspools of right-wing media and social media.
“We have been reasonable, responsible, asked to sit down with the president for months,” claimed McCarthy. “He is making the decision that he wants to put the economy in jeopardy. I don’t know what more I can do.” Biden has been clear that he wants to see a budget proposal from House Republicans to set up the negotiations, but McCarthy doesn’t know what more he can do?
That’s dishonest, but here’s where it goes off the rails. “I would bring the lunch to the White House,” McCarthy said. “I would make it soft food if that’s what he wants, it doesn’t matter. Whatever it takes to meet.”
Get it? Soft food because Biden is old? Biden’s age is an obsession with Republicans, who can’t stand that he’s visibly sharper than Donald Trump and therefore have to project doddering senility onto him. It’s a nasty, unfunny joke from McCarthy, but it’s also telling.
First off, McCarthy made that joke for a reason: to show the denizens of the far-right that he’s with them. That they’re his people. That includes Fox News viewers sitting at home and members of Congress like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and Thomas Massie alike. McCarthy just announced, unmistakably, what wing of the Republican Party he’s beholden to. It wasn’t a surprise if you paid attention to his speaker battle, but it also isn’t the picture of McCarthy the media is offering. If you watch CNN or read The New York Times, you might think McCarthy is the leader of his party. This is a strong reminder that the reverse is true.
But it also shows how unserious McCarthy is about meeting with Biden. If you're trying to get someone to sit down and negotiate over something difficult, do you get them to the table by insulting them? By suggesting that they literally can’t chew their food? Of course not. McCarthy took a tone of earnest pleading and wrapped inside it a line calculated to drive Biden away from negotiations.
Senate Republicans are
reportedly concernedthat House Republicans are going to screw up the debt limit fight by refusing to negotiate and making too many extreme demands, blustering and threatening until it’s too late and the only answer is to pass a clean debt limit increase. McCarthy is doing nothing to assuage those fears, just as he’s doing nothing to get Biden to the negotiating table.