Day: September 29, 2021

The White House on Tuesday sought to minimize the impact of congressional testimony from top military officials that contradicted President Joe Biden’s past assertions that he was not urged to keep thousands of troops in Afghanistan.

“I think it’s important for the American people to know that these conversations don’t happen in black and white, like you’re in the middle of a movie,” press secretary Jen Psaki said during the daily press briefing.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, who commands U.S. Central Command, told members of the Senate Armed Services committee earlier Tuesday that he recommended maintaining a force of roughly 2,500 troops in Afghanistan earlier this year.

McKenzie also acknowledged discussing with Biden a similar recommendation to leave a few thousand troops on the ground from Gen. Scott Miller, the commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan until July. Miller detailed that recommendation to Congress in closed testimony last week.

“I was present when that discussion occurred, and I am confident that the president heard all the recommendations and listened to them very thoughtfully,” McKenzie testified Tuesday.

Just prior to the briefing, Psaki pointed to part of Biden’s mid-August interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in which the president acknowledged that military advisers were “split” on whether to leave a residual force in Afghanistan rather than having the U.S. completely withdraw.

“There was a range of viewpoints, as was evidenced by their testimony today, that were presented to the president, that were presented to his national security team, as would be expected,” Psaki told reporters Tuesday.

However, also during the interview Psaki cited, Stephanopoulos pressed Biden directly on the matter: “So no one told — your military advisers did not tell you, ‘No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that’?”

Biden replied: “No. No one said that to me that I can recall.”

Nevertheless, the Biden administration has held firm in its belief that pulling out of Afghanistan was the correct decision, even amid withering criticisms from both sides of the aisle over the chaos that unfolded during the operation, a posture that Psaki reiterated from the podium Tuesday.

“He did not think it was in the interest of the American people, or the interest of our troops,” to keep forces in Afghanistan, she said.

She also downplayed the divergence between the testimony of military leaders and the White House on the withdrawal strategy, saying that Biden was not looking for “a bunch of yes men and women.”

“Ultimately, regardless of the advice, it’s his decision,” Psaki said.

Though he is beset by turmoil overseas, confronting chaos at the border and struggling to contain a deadly pandemic back home, the president’s main challenge this week comes from his own party.

With his economic and domestic policy agenda on the line, President Joe Biden needs a big win from his fellow Democrats, whose early unity around his presidency has been strained as summer turns to fall. Biden’s now trying to coax them back together — and avert an electoral disaster in 2022.

From Camp David, he worked the phones with lawmakers over the weekend, urging them to support the multitrillion spending package party leaders are looking to pass this month. Senior adviser Steve Ricchetti, Biden top economic adviser Brian Deese, another economic adviser, David Kamin and the White House’s legislative affairs team led by Louisa Terrell lobbied lawmakers too, visiting the Hill, calling members and holding Zoom sessions with them.

Allies are spending another $4 million in ads starting this week urging unity around two massive spending plans, according to numbers made available to POLITICO by Climate Power & the League of Conservation Voters. And Build Back Together, an outside group closely aligned with the White House, is pushing out messaging to local media outlets, which it views as the most trusted news, asking Democrats to convey that Biden’s economic plans are “popular, popular, popular,” according to the group’s talking points, the toplines of which stress middle class tax cuts, jobs and making the wealthiest Americans and corporations pay more.

Collectively, it is a throw-everything-at-the-wall attempt to push through a $3.5 trillion Democrat-only social and climate spending plan along with a bipartisan infrastructure package with a $550 billion price tag. And it illustrates the sense of desperation that has taken over the party as those agenda items seem painfully close to failing in Congress.

The impact on Democrats if they come up short: “Disastrous,” said John Podesta, a veteran Democrat and former counselor to Barack Obama.

“You need all three of those things” to have any hope of keeping their majorities in the 2022 midterms, Podesta said, referring to the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion Covid relief package that passed in the spring, as well as the two pending plans. “If you pull out the fact that when Democrats were in control they couldn’t do anything for you, then drawing attention to how wacky the Republicans have become doesn’t mean a lot.”

Inside the White House, the tension heading into this week is palpable, aides and allies said.

The president’s approval numbers have been stuck in the mid-40s for weeks. Each attempt at recalibration on its pandemic response — the main force driving down his numbers — has been overshadowed by other world events, from the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan to the troubling scenes of Haitian migrants gathering at the southern border.

Hungry for progress on the domestic front, the White House is now in a compromising state of mind. The president has made it clear he is willing to accept less than the $3.5 trillion that has been the sticker price for his Build Back Better plan, even as his aides publicly say that the cost will ultimately be nothing since it will all be paid for.

Inside the White House, the goal increasingly is to simply get the package over the goal line.

“They need a win,” said Amanda Loveday, senior adviser with Unite the Country, a pro-Biden super PAC, pointing to Afghanistan, the economy and turmoil at the U.S. border on top of the pandemic. “They’re all connected. If you’re able to get more Americans vaccinated, you’re able to see the economy continue to grow. All of it is an intersecting web, the nucleus is a better America for the people of this country.”

Where the White House finds optimism is in the experience of its staff. A person familiar with the White House’s thinking noted that those in charge of ultimately cutting the deals, like Ricchetti, have been in tough legislative battles in past administrations and even earlier this year.

“They understand that until the vote has been cast, they should be worried,” the person said. “That was the case with the rescue plan, that was the case with the bipartisan infrastructure deal coming together, that was the case with the budget resolutions and that is going to be the case with both of these bills. That until the votes have actually been cast, they’ll be working as hard as they can to make sure they do pass.”

But few legislative vehicles are as complicated to pass as the current package, which relies on progressives and moderates in the party to find commonality on massive domestic spending and taxation policy while trusting each other’s motivations. Democratic allies of the White House said this past week that they feared the president’s team had been caught off guard by the stalemate between the two sides of the party and was playing a massive game of catch up with House votes slated on both the infrastructure component and reconciliation bill this week.

In anticipation of those votes, new ads funded by Climate Power and the League of Conservation Voters — two of the most aggressive champions of the climate components of the reconciliation bill — will go live on TV and digitally this week. The new spending is in addition to $9 million in ads the groups have already been aired in key districts. Rep. Kathleen Rice’s (D-N.Y.) New York district and Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s (D-Fla.) Florida district are among those targeted with ads underscoring the need to tackle climate change.

A Tuesday news conference held by Climate Power and League of Conservation Voters will also amplify messaging that ties climate change to the economic packages. Reps. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Susie Lee (D-Nev.), Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), and Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) are set to join the groups.

Last week, Podesta sent a memo to every Democratic congressional office warning the party could lose its majority if lawmakers didn’t coalesce around a bigger spending package. He also pushed for the need to act on the climate while underscoring the political realities that would keep various Democratic factions from getting what they wanted. It was a major turn for Podesta, who earlier this year had urged the White House to not hold out for Republicans on an infrastructure package.

Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who regularly helps run focus groups that look at issues facing the White House, downplayed Biden’s dropping polling numbers as a typical consequence of the realities of governing.

“Anyone who has thought that initial polling numbers at the start of the administration would hold for four years doesn’t understand the partisan climate in which we live,” he said.

But Biden’s numbers — with a Gallup poll last week putting him at just 43 percent approval — remain a concern both in the White House and among Democrats facing tough midterms next year. Donald Trump’s Gallup approval was in the upper 30s at this time in 2017 and Republicans took a pummeling in the midterms the following year.

Still, Ferguson said in the samplings he’s seen, Americans are pointing more and more to “a faction of the minority” they blame for holding back the country’s progress on Covid. “The biggest imperative going forward,” he said, “is to now show he is successfully solving these problems and at the same time when they can’t be solved, making clear who’s to blame.”

Sam Stein contributed to this report.

Democrats are hinting they’re willing to drop the debt ceiling from their government funding package this week in order to avoid a government shutdown, a sign that their slim majorities are eager to avoid a shuttered federal government on their watch.

Senate Republicans sank Democrats’ plans to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling together on Monday evening, sending Democratic leaders scrambling to avoid a government shutdown that would kick in Friday morning. They have several options, Democrats said in the aftermath, but a government shutdown is not one.

The GOP rejected a proposal to fund the government into December and lift the debt ceiling past next year’s midterms, a vote that needed the support of 10 Republicans to advance over a GOP filibuster. But only a handful of GOP senators even considered it, and the bill appeared doomed for days. The bill failed, 48-50, and no Republicans supported it.

But Democrats are adamant that despite the GOP position, they will not allow a shutdown even though it certainly means yanking the debt ceiling from their spending bill. The debt ceiling deadline is several weeks away, and the more immediate deadline is on funding the government past Thursday.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said that with control of Congress and the White House, “we’re not going to let the government shut down and we’re not going to default.” And Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the House’s spending panel, said Monday night that Democrats will devise another funding patch this week without language to lift the debt limit.

“I’m sure there are very, very smart, clever people to figure out how you deal with the debt,” DeLauro said. “Our first order of business is to keep the government open, which we are going to do.”

The quick movement away from a shutdown fight demonstrates Democrats’ distaste for injecting more drama into their attempts to execute President Joe Biden’s agenda. But they haven’t decided whether to simply kick the can on the debt fight with Republicans to October or separate it from the spending bill altogether. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has kept his endgame closely-held over the past few days, instead seeking to thrash the GOP as “the party of default,” as he declared on Monday.

Democrats will have to quickly conjure up a short-term spending bill that can win bipartisan support, or otherwise face an imminent shutdown right as they try and iron out complicated intraparty divisions over Biden’s jobs and families plan. A shutdown is the last thing Democrats’ thin majorities need, even if Republicans’ opposition to lifting the debt ceiling is the primary reason for the prospect of both a funding lapse and a potential default in the coming weeks.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said “there’s no earthly reason we can’t get this done.” And Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who represents thousands of government workers, said for his state “nothing would be worse than a shutdown.”

“We shouldn’t even string it out until Thursday because of the enormous costs that are incurred in the pre-shutdown procedures. But I think we’re there. How we get through the debt ceiling? Still TBD,” Warner said .

DeLauro’s revamped funding bill is expected to keep cash flowing to government agencies through Dec. 3, the chair said — the same span of time as the proposal the Senate rejected Monday. Since the Treasury Department is expected to exhaust its borrowing ability well before that date, Democrats would be unhitching the shutdown threat from the debt crisis, relinquishing key leverage as they try to shame Republicans into voting to prevent a default.

“We’re going to come back with another proposal in which we can fund the government,” DeLauro said. “Funding the government — keeping the government open — is a critical piece. And we’ll do whatever that takes to be able to get that done.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff told House Democratic chiefs of staff on Monday they are confident they will be able to keep the government funded this week, according to Democratic sources. But first, Democrats want to try and make clear that Republicans would be solely responsible for a debt debacle and a government shutdown. Schumer said he may call the House’s doomed bill up for another vote this week.

Democrats have several options to move forward to avoid a shutdown. They can pass a short-term two- or three-week stopgap spending bill and try and line up the projecting late October date for potential default. Republicans say this option will not move them.

Or, as DeLauro noted, they can simply remove the debt limit provision and put forward legislation to fund the government for two months, which is the easiest path forward. That would also probably require Democrats to begin laying the groundwork to raise the debt ceiling on their own.

The ill-fated Monday vote on a spending proposal also includes funding for disaster relief in hurricane-stricken states like Louisiana and assistance for Afghan refugees. House Democrats dropped $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system from their bill earlier this month, but a contingent of Senate Democrats want to add it back. Some House leadership aides hope Schumer keeps out Iron Dome missile defense funding to keep progressives happy.

Senate Republicans have signaled for months that they will oppose suspending or raising the debt ceiling, arguing that Democrats have the means to do so on their own if they want to pass their $3.5 trillion social spending plan. Republicans say the Democrats should drop the debt ceiling from the measure to keep government doors open, add the Iron Dome funding and raise the debt ceiling via the party-line budget reconciliation maneuver.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Republicans would easily help approve a spending bill that does not touch the debt limit to avoid a shutdown, but was again adamant his party would block any debt limit increase. He offered his counterproposal before the failed vote on Monday evening but was denied by Democrats.

“We should act immediately on the proposal for a CR to prevent a government shutdown later this week, along with urgent disaster assistance for states hit hard by the hurricanes, aid for resettling Afghan allies, and replenishing the Iron Dome money for Israel. That package could be passed today,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Democrats counter that much of the new debt was incurred under the Trump administration and that doing so along party lines would set a problematic precedent. Democrats also highlight that they raised the debt ceiling three times when former President Donald Trump was in power and the vast majority of debt ceiling increases have been bipartisan.

In the modern Congress, it’s common to be days — or even hours — away from a government shutdown without a clear plan for averting a funding lapse. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the chamber’s top Republican appropriator, projected confidence that Senate leaders will eventually find ways to head off both fiscal cliffs before turmoil ensues.

“At the end of the day — I don’t know when that’s going to be now — that we’ll pass a [continuing resolution], and we’ll work out the debt limit,” said Shelby, who has served in Congress for more than 40 years. “This is nothing new here.”

Heather Caygle and Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reversing a months-long vow to push through the two major planks of Democrats’ domestic agenda in tandem, a huge shift just days before a critical infrastructure vote.

Pelosi explained her thinking in a rare Monday night caucus session, saying she and President Joe Biden are continuing to push the Senate on negotiations related to the social spending package, but the House must move ahead on infrastructure this week before surface transportation funding expires Thursday.

The speaker had declared earlier this summer that the House would only pass Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill if both chambers had also agreed to the party’s broader social spending plan. The California Democrat privately told members that the thinking began to change 10 days ago when she learned that Democrats would need to scale back the initial $3.5 trillion price tag for that spending bill — a massive legislative task.

“It all changed, so our approach had to change,” Pelosi told her caucus Monday, according to Democrats present.

“We had to accommodate the changes that were being necessitated.” And we cannot be ready to say, she added, “Until the Senate passed the bill, we can’t do [infrastructure].”

The California Democrat said Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer continue to push Senate moderates to agree to a topline spending target, saying spending bill action in her chamber is effectively frozen until that happens.

“We are not going to pass a bill that won’t pass the Senate. And that’s why we have to come up with a number,” Pelosi told Democrats. “But we’re not there yet.”

But even as Pelosi attempted to rally her caucus around the new plan, the senator who would be key to any deal showed no movement.

“It would be a shame if anyone took credit for sinking an infrastructure bill this country needs,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), adding that those warnings would not affect him. “I don’t do really good on threats,” he said.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries said Democratic leaders would continue to try to push the Senate on the broader bill this week while moving ahead on the infrastructure vote.

“What’s holding everything up are a few senators who aren’t providing us with any clarity as to where they ultimately will land,” Jeffries said. “That’s the issue in front of us right now, and we have to try to resolve it in the next few days.”

Still, Democrats have not started to whip the infrastructure vote and some progressives signaled Monday night that they wouldn’t go along with the plan.

“Absolutely not. A deal is a deal. We are not passing anything short of having the full Build Back Better agenda,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) when asked if progressives would be willing to advance the infrastructure bill even as the broader bill remained unfinished.

Sources close to Pelosi say the speaker was left without a choice given the looming expiration date for highway and transit programs and the resistance from Senate moderates to publicly commit to overall funding or program guarantees within the broader spending package.

The closed-door session Monday marked the first time the Democratic caucus sat down since Pelosi announced the the House would vote Thursday on Biden’s infrastructure package. The speaker also declared over the weekend that the House would vote this week on Democrats’ sprawling domestic policy bill — an aim so loft that few Democrats believe it is possible in the coming days.

Instead, Pelosi and key members of her caucus are focused on reaching a public agreement with key senators on the total cost of the social spending plan as well as other major aspects. But it’s unclear exactly how many specifics Democrats will secure from Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the Senate’s most vocal centrists, in time for their Thursday vote, according to people close to their thinking — which Democrats believe has essentially forced their party to delink the two bills.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer confirmed after the meeting that the infrastructure vote would happen Thursday: “There is an absolute consensus we need to pass these two bills, period.”

In the push to reach a bicameral accord, Sinema has been in close contact with a small group of House moderates, including Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.). Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) has also been in touch with some of those moderates, including Sinema.

Dynamics within the caucus remain deeply strained, with progressives publicly vowing to oppose the Senate’s bipartisan public works bill without passage of the social package, and moderates threatening to tank those party-line talks without an infrastructure vote this week.

Some moderates — who had demanded the infrastructure vote this week — privately emerged from the meeting feeling like they had secured a win over the left faction of their caucus.

In the Democratic meeting Monday, moderate Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) told her colleagues to stop “using the word ‘leverage.’”

“Delaying the bill isn’t going to make us any more or less likely to support reconciliation,” she said. “I am a legislator, not a lemming.”

Even as progressives and centrists remained publicly intractable Monday, both sides had been slowly starting to concede in private that they will have to give some ground in order to ensure Biden’s domestic agenda stays afloat.

Publicly though, Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was still insisting as of Monday afternoon that progressives wanted to see the sprawling spending plan passed in both the House and Senate before the caucus will support the infrastructure vote.

“What we have said is we need the entire reconciliation bill,” Jayapal told reporters. “Some framework that can still take another couple months to get done, that the Senate hasn’t agreed to, that hasn’t been voted on, that’s not going to do it for us.”

Jayapal’s thinking had not changed after Pelosi’s shift to decouple the two spending bills.

“We are going to vote for both bills after the reconciliation bill is done,” she said after the caucus meeting.

Jayapal also downplayed the surface transportation date, saying the program’s authorization has expired many times in the past but “nothing happens as long as we keep the appropriations going.”

The list of lingering questions about Biden’s broader package remains long. Both Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are still wrangling their members about what they’re willing to support on both the scope and substance of the legislation. Democrats are split over the price tag of the bill — currently at $3.5 trillion — as well as huge questions about government drug price negotiations and expanding Medicare and Medicaid.

“I think we’re going to do everything Nancy Pelosi said we’re going to do. That’s usually the way things turn out,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). “It’s not pretty, it’s not gonna be easy, but what I know is that there’s not a single Democrat who will walk into that room who’s interested in sacking our quarterback.”

Pelosi and Schumer spoke to Biden via phone before the House caucus meeting Monday evening. Several senior Democrats are also hoping Biden will more forcefully weigh in on the infrastructure vote Thursday, publicly declaring that the bill needs to be passed by the House on that day.

So far the president has not done so directly, instead speaking about the overall urgency of his agenda during a brief interaction with reporters Monday. Without specifying a deadline, he said “we got three things to do: the debt ceiling, the continuing resolution, and the two pieces of legislation. If we do that, the country is going to be in great shape.”

Pelosi teed up the infrastructure vote on Thursday for two reasons; the first is to exert maximum pressure on members to vote yes, given the expiration of key surface transportation funding that day.

Senior Democrats on both sides of the Capitol are hoping to secure that official “framework” for that policy bill that would have buy-in from Senate moderates — ideally enough of a commitment to convince liberals in the House to back down on their threat and support the infrastructure bill.

Progressives say that framework must lay out precise details on what the Senate centrists are willing to support on everything from Medicare expansion to climate provisions. If not, they will not vote for the infrastructure bill.

Democrats are gearing up for an intense few days as Pelosi and her leadership team attempt to lock down the votes on Thursday.

“The temperature will never go down. People are passionate. The heat won’t go down until this is over,” Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) said leaving Monday night’s meeting, adding that the speaker took “meticulous” notes from each speaker. “She’s listening to everybody.”

Burgess Everett and Nicholas Wu contributed.

Democratic leaders keep ruling out what may be the only way to avoid a debt default, leaving lawmakers and financial markets uncertain of how a dramatic clash with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling will play out.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seemed to shut the door on using budget reconciliation to raise the debt ceiling. Instead, he is leaning on Republicans to stop blocking a debt limit increase as the country creeps closer and closer to cataclysmic debt limit breach in three weeks.

Schumer concluded on Tuesday afternoon that “going through reconciliation is risky to the country and is a non-starter.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Schumer’s position is “shared by many members” but declined to say if she supports the idea or aligns herself directly with Schumer: “We’ll see what our options are.”

There’s mass confusion among congressional Democrats about how the majority party and its slim majorities will avoid a potential default just three weeks away. Senate Republicans on Monday sank Democrats’ plan to fund the government into December and kick the debt limit through the 2022 midterms, then they blocked an effort from Schumer to lift the debt ceiling by a majority vote on Tuesday.

Consternation over the debt limit is reaching the highest levels of Democratic leadership as uncertainty hangs over Congress. President Joe Biden discussed the possibility of raising the debt ceiling via budget reconciliation on Monday evening on a telephone call with Pelosi and Schumer, the latest sign that Democrats are searching for a way around entrenched GOP opposition.

No final decision was made on the call, according to two Democrats familiar with the conversation. But the GOP’s stubborn opposition to raising the debt ceiling has Democrats fuming as they search for a way to avoid a shutdown on Friday and a default in October.

“We may have to use reconciliation. I think that would be a sad statement of Republican responsibility,” conceded House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He later walked that back and said it was “not the option we’re pursuing.” Privately, however, Democrats say congressional leaders are not ruling it out as it may be the only way around the Senate GOP.

Reconciliation allows Democrats to avoid a GOP filibuster, but requires close coordination between the House and Senate and could take weeks. Schumer has been walking his caucus through how cumbersome it could be to use the arcane budget process to raise the debt ceiling and the many pitfalls ahead if leaders choose to follow that route.

Democrats are likely to pass a government funding bill without the debt ceiling attached to head off a shutdown this week. But that doesn’t mean they are committed to using reconciliation to lift the debt ceiling. Instead, Schumer has warned his caucus that the gambit would be “burdensome and untenable,” according to one of the Democrats.

“Using reconciliation is a non-starter. We have gone through it twice, I’ve listened, and it takes him about 15 minutes for Chuck Schumer to explain how that works, what it involves. Three or four weeks of activity in the House and Senate,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

There’s little time to waste. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Congress on Tuesday that lawmakers must raise the debt ceiling by around Oct. 18 to avoid a debt default. That means Democrats would need to start moving on the time-consuming reconciliation process in the coming days to avoid a default, should they choose that path over continuing confrontation with Republicans.

On Tuesday, Schumer asked Senate Republicans to allow a standalone vote on the debt limit at a majority threshold rather than the typically needed 60 votes, though Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected that ask. Though he has pushed Democrats to raise the debt limit on their own, McConnell prefers they use budget reconciliation, a more excruciating maneuver.

“Leader Schumer wants Democrats to be able to do it alone if Republicans refuse to help. So that’s really what is being pursued at this point in time,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. She pleaded for McConnell to “get out of the way and let Democrats do it alone.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made clear that Republicans are intent on making it as difficult as possible for Democrats to raise the debt ceiling — even as they insist Democrats do it all on their own .

“When this fails I fully expect Schumer will surrender and do what he could have done weeks or months ago, which is raise the debt ceiling with Democratic votes,” Cruz said.

When asked why not just allow Schumer to do exactly that on Tuesday rather than force Democrats to pursue reconciliation, he responded: “He wants consent because all 50 Republicans would have to consent. It’s the same game and he knows the outcome.”

Senate Democrats also might need to cancel a mid-October recess to raise the debt ceiling on their own via reconciliation, which allows the party to avoid a GOP filibuster but would require negotiations with the parliamentarian — the Senate’s rules arbiter — and some degree of cooperation from Republicans. McConnell confidently predicted that Democrats will raise the debt ceiling “because we always do,” though typically both parties support an increase.

“I know the country is not going to default. I know they have the votes to do this,” McConnell said in an interview. “I don’t have any doubt that they will take care of this.”

But Schumer has more plans in mind for filleting Republicans as the party of “default” and may force them to vote a second time on the House-passed funding and debt proposal they blocked on Monday.

House leaders are also considering passing a spending bill that leaves out the debt limit and sending the Senate standalone legislation on that issue in the coming days. That bill is expected to lift the debt ceiling through the November midterms next year, according to two Democrats familiar with the plan.

Pelosi told Democrats that “there might be a timely vote” on the debt limit as soon as this week and asked if there’s anyone in her caucus “who will not vote to preserve the full faith and credit in the United States,” according to Democrats in the private meeting.

Democratic aides with knowledge of the plan say the House will likely vote on the clean debt limit bill on Wednesday, along with a separate vote on a continuing resolution to fund the government this week that does not include raising the debt ceiling. Government funding runs out on Oct. 1.

Marianne LeVine and Myah Ward contributed to this report.