Top House negotiator on debt limit says it’s time to ‘press pause’ as talks come to standstill

WASHINGTON –

A high debt ceiling negotiator for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy mentioned Friday it is time to “press pause” on talks as negotiations with the White House got here to an abrupt standstill on the Capitol.

Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., tapped by McCarthy, R-Calif., to steer the talks, emerged from an hourlong session and mentioned gaps remained between House Republicans and the Democratic administration.

“It’s time to press pause because it’s just not productive,” Graves instructed reporters.

Graves mentioned the negotiations are “just unreasonable” and that it was unclear when talks would resume.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is racing to strike a take care of Republicans led by McCarthy because the nation careens towards a probably catastrophic debt default if the federal government fails to extend the borrowing restrict to maintain paying the nation’s payments.

Negotiators met for a 3rd day behind closed doorways on the Capitol with hopes of deciding on an settlement this weekend earlier than attainable House votes subsequent week. They face a looming deadline as quickly as June 1 when the Treasury Department has mentioned it is going to run out of money to pay the federal government’s incurred debt.

Republicans wish to extract steep spending cuts that Biden has to this point refused to simply accept. Any deal would want assist of each Republicans and Democrats to seek out approval within the divided Congress and be handed into regulation.

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Associated Press author Stephen Groves contributed to this report