The Lead with Jake Tapper: Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) is Interviewed about Debt Limit Deal

Interview

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Well, we continue to hear the same thing, which is that there's a lot of talk, but doesn't seem to be much progress. And I would say to my colleague, Congressman McHenry, if he is so worried about a downgrade and he is so worried about what will happen if we don't default -- if we do default on the debt limit, then they need to give more concessions than raising the debt limit, which is exactly what the speaker said this week, that is not a concession, that is their duty. So you're right, a negotiation is a compromise. But all we seem to be getting from the Republicans in terms of a compromise is nothing.

Raising the debt limit is not a compromise, it's not a concession. And I think that's part of the reason why these talks have taken so long and are so stalled.

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Well, it's not necessary for a bill to sit out there for 72 hours. If the speaker wants to move it more quickly, he can. I assume the Senate can move things very quickly. We've been indicated -- we gotten indications of that. So it is possible still to do it.

But we need a deal today. We need to get this done. And what that is going to mean is that these completely manufactured and unreasonable demands from the Republicans that they would never be able to get during the ordinary appropriations process, but that they are using the threat of defaulting on our bills, paying our bills, in order to extract concessions that they wouldn't otherwise get, it is true hostage taking. And Representative Matt Gaetz admitted that this week. And so, what we need is for them to actually come to the table with a reasonable solution that can urgently raise the debt limit.

We've got a discharge petition that will make a clean debt limit increase. We just need five Republicans to sign that.

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Yes. Well, there should be because their constituents in those 18 Biden districts are going to be very unhappy with them if they don't sign that discharge petition or do something to increase the debt limit so that we don't have a catastrophic default.

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I haven't spoken to any of them about this. I've read public comments that they're not budging. I think it'll be very, very bad for them if they allow the Republican Party to hold the line on these unreasonable demands that they would never get with a Democratic Senate and a Democrat in the White House and ultimately our bonds, our debt is downgraded, which will have a significant impact even prior to our default. So, no, that's going to be remembered certainly in November 2024 if these moderate Republicans let that happen.

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You too, Jake.

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