Biden will cut international trip short as Washington scrambles to avoid debt default

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden hosts legislature leaders astatine the White House for a highly anticipated gathering connected the indebtedness bounds Tuesday, stricter enactment requirements for societal information nett programs are emerging arsenic imaginable country of compromise.

The restrictions are a cardinal request of House Republicans, who included them successful a partisan indebtedness bounds measure that passed the House past month.

"The nationalist wants it," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Tuesday, citing a caller ballot inaugural successful Wisconsin. "Both parties privation it, the thought that [Democrats] privation to enactment america into a default due to the fact that they volition not enactment with america connected that is ludicrous to me."

But they are besides a reddish enactment for immoderate progressive Democrats, a information that could scramble the ballot mathematics of immoderate indebtedness bounds woody that could walk the House.

Increasing the existent enactment requirements for national assistance programs are "a nonstarter for me," said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and subordinate of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, connected MSNBC.

"It's conscionable cruel, particularly arsenic we spot the slowing down of the economy," Khanna said. "I'm hopeful the president volition instrumentality to what helium said, that we wage our debts, and past we tin negociate connected the budget."

But Biden and the White House person signaled successful caller days that the requirements could beryllium connected the table, arsenic Congress races to scope a woody to rise oregon suspend the indebtedness bounds successful clip to debar economical fallout from a imaginable U.S. indebtedness default that could travel arsenic aboriginal arsenic the archetypal week of June.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were gathering with McCarthy, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The White House besides said Tuesday that it would cancel the 2nd limb of the president's upcoming planetary trip, fixed the delicate authorities of indebtedness ceiling negotiations.

Biden is presently scheduled to depart Wednesday for Japan, wherever helium volition be the G-7 leaders summit. He volition present instrumentality to the U.S. connected Sunday instantly aft the gathering ends, and volition not marque planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia, a root acquainted with Biden's travel readying told NBC News.

Over the weekend, Biden answered a question astir the enactment requirements by pointing to his ain Senate grounds of voting for payment enactment requirements successful the 1990s.

"I voted for tougher assistance programs, that's successful the instrumentality now, but for Medicaid it's a antithetic story," Biden said Sunday successful Rehoboth, Del. "And truthful I'm waiting to perceive what their nonstop connection is."

A Republican measure passed past period included stricter enactment requirements not lone for Medicaid, but for the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, oregon TANF, funds, arsenic good arsenic Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program nutrient stamps.

The White House reiterated Tuesday that Biden would cull astatine slightest immoderate of the projected enactment requirements.

Biden "will not judge proposals that volition instrumentality distant people's wellness coverage," said White House property caput Karine Jean-Pierre. She did not say, however, that helium would not judge changes to nutrient stamps oregon impermanent assistance programs.

This is simply a processing story, delight cheque backmost for updates.