Politics

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The historic impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was just the first round of a Republican brawl over whether to banish one of their own in America’s biggest red state after years of criminal accusations.

Paxton and his allies, from former President Donald Trump to hard-right grassroots organizations across Texas, now wait to fight back in what Paxton hopes will be a friendlier arena: a trial in the state Senate.

It was still unclear Sunday when this will take place. The Republican-led Senate met to pass bills in the final days of the legislative session. But the chamber’s presiding officer, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, did not immediately address the Paxton impeachment.

Late Sunday, the House of Representatives investigating panel that initiated Paxton’s impeachment issued a dozen new subpoenas for testimony and records from Paxton associates, businesses, banks and financial trusts. It was unclear how quickly those records and testimony could be collected ahead of a Senate trial.

Paxton has said he has “full confidence” as he awaits a Senate trial. His conservative allies there include his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who has not said whether she will recuse herself from the proceedings to determine whether her husband will be permanently removed from office.

He is just the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

“No one person should be above the law, least not the top law officer of the state of Texas,” said Republican state Rep. David Spiller, who was part of a House investigative committee that this week revealed it had quietly been looking into Paxton for months.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has remained silent about Paxton all week , including after Saturday’s impeachment. Abbott, who was the state’s attorney general prior to Paxton’s taking the job in 2015, has the power to appoint a temporary replacement pending the outcome in the Senate trial.

Final removal of Paxton would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Republican members are generally aligned with the party’s hard right. Patrick, the presiding officer, has served as state chairman for Trump’s campaigns in Texas.

A group of Senate Republicans issued identical statements late Saturday and Sunday saying they “welcome and encourage communication from our constituents.” But the group also said they now consider themselves jurors and will not discuss the Paxton case.

Before the vote Saturday, Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to Paxton’s defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process “a travesty” and saying the attorney general’s legal troubles should be left to the courts.

“Free Ken Paxton,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the impeachment, “I will fight you.”

Paxton, 60, decried the outcome in the House moments after scores of his fellow partisans voted for impeachment. His office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing.

“The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just,” Paxton said. “It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.”

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that Republican legislators had too little time to review evidence.

“I perceive it could be political weaponization,” Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the House’s most conservative members, said before the vote. Republican Rep. John Smithee compared the proceeding to “a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.”

Rice University political science professor Mark P. Jones said the swift move to impeach kept Paxton from rallying significant support and allowed quietly frustrated Republicans to come together.

“If you ask most Republicans privately, they feel Paxton is an embarrassment. But most were too afraid of the base to oppose him,” Jones said. By voting as a large bloc, he added, the lawmakers gained political cover.

To Paxton’s longstanding detractors, however, the rebuke was years overdue.

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

But what ultimately unleashed the impeachment push was Paxton’s relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxton’s still-pending securities fraud indictment.

“But for Paxton’s own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment,” the panel said.

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By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When Kevin McCarthy was struggling early this year to get enough votes from his own Republicans to become Speaker of the House of Representatives, Democratic President Joe Biden called the prolonged saga a national embarrassment, then had a little fun.

“I’ve got good news for you,” Biden said, pointing playfully at a reporter after a speech in Kentucky. “They just elected you speaker.”

During months of tense exchanges over the U.S. debt ceiling, McCarthy has also taken some swipes at Biden. Arguing that Biden should meet him to discuss his demands for lifting the debt ceiling in March, McCarthy made fun of the 80-year-old president’s advanced age.

“I would bring lunch to the White House. I would make it soft food if that’s what he wants. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it takes to meet,” McCarthy told reporters.

In the last few weeks, however, both men have stopped the put-downs and cobbled together an agreement that will now lead to a congressional vote to suspend the U.S. debt ceiling and avoid a default that would wreak economic havoc on the country.

Like the deal they crafted, the relationship the two men forged does not look pretty but appears to have gotten the job done.

“I think he negotiated with me in good faith,” Biden said of McCarthy on Sunday. “He kept his word. He said what he would do. He did what he said he would do.”

The deal caps federal spending and forces more poor people to work for food aid, concessions that Democrats hate. But it also preserves much of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and punts the next debt ceiling showdown into 2025, which Republicans hate.

STRANGE POLITICAL BEDFELLOWS

Biden, a veteran former senator from Delaware, talks about the days when both parties would often come together to solve pressing problems, and he has pushed his fellow Democrats to find across-the-aisle agreements as part of his larger attempts to re-center the country.

Although he initially called for the debt ceiling to be raised without negotiations, he ended up making compromises.

McCarthy, a 58-year-old Californian, is representative of a pugilistic style of Republican politics that took root with the “Tea Party” and blossomed under former President Donald Trump.

He came up through the party ranks pushing tax cuts for companies and reduced government spending and is now presiding over an unruly Republican Party in which radical lawmakers have threatened to force him out of the Speaker job unless he takes a hard line with the White House.

After an initial Feb. 1 meeting at the White House, an optimistic McCarthy predicted that he and Biden would find common ground and meet again soon.

Instead, a three-month stand-off ensued.

Biden refused to negotiate as the White House bet that investors and business groups would persuade Republicans to back off their threat to drive the United States into default.

Both McCarthy and Biden spent that time accusing the other of putting the U.S. economy at risk. McCarthy complained of his own isolation from the White House.

“I never had somebody from the White House reach out to me. Not one person from the administration called me. I called them,” the House speaker told reporters at a Republican retreat in March.

Even after negotiations finally began in earnest, McCarthy portrayed the president as the captive of “socialists” intent on default.

“He’d rather be the first president in history to default on the debt than to risk upsetting the radical socialists who are calling the shots for Democrats right now,” McCarthy tweeted last week.

But his tone changed as both sides moved toward a deal last week, expressing his respect for White House negotiators: “These are highly intelligent, highly respected on both sides. They know their work, they know their job, they know the numbers.”

House Republican Patrick McHenry, a key negotiator in the talks, noted that Biden and McCarthy were “two Irish guys that don’t drink” but had found a way to work together.

“What I saw in the Oval Office yesterday was a willingness to engage with each other in a sincere way – air disagreements, listen,” McHenry said after one of the meetings last week.

Biden aides say the relationship between Biden and McCarthy is largely cordial and businesslike and that Biden recognizes the Speaker has a struggle on his hand presiding over the various factions within the Republican Party.

TRUMP, PELOSI CONNECTIONS

It may not help their relationship that both men were very close to the other’s predecessor.

Biden idolized former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a woman “who I think will be considered the greatest Speaker in the history of this country,” he said at his Feb. 7 State of the Union address.

McCarthy was an enthusiastic supporter of Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, and a frequent flyer on Air Force One when Trump was president.

He was among 147 Republicans who voted to overturn Biden’s 2020 election win over Trump’s claims of election fraud, although he eventually acknowledged Biden as the legitimate president.

He criticized Trump over his failure to rein in his own supporters during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but remains in touch with him.

(Reporting By Steve Holland and David Morgan; Editing by Heather Timmons and Deepa Babington)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in the House of Representatives on Monday laid plans to advance a debt-ceiling deal with Democratic President Joe Biden starting Tuesday, with the aim of passing it through Congress before the U.S. government runs out of money early next week.

The House Rules Committee said it would take up the agreement on Tuesday afternoon, which could clear the way for a vote by the Republican-controlled chamber.

The package also must pass the Democratic-controlled Senate before Biden can sign it into law.

The U.S. Treasury Department says the United States could default on its obligations as soon as June 5 if Congress does not act.

Prospects are uncertain, as lawmakers on the left and the right have objected to the deal. Representative Raul Grijalva, a progressive Democrat, wrote on Twitter that its changes to environmental rules were “disturbing and profoundly disappointing.”

The newsletter Punchbowl, citing Republican sources, said a preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed the deal could save up to $2 trillion if its spending caps were left in place for six years, though much of that depends on which party controls Congress over that time. It was not clear when CBO would release its official estimate.

The 99-page bill would suspend the debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025, allowing lawmakers to set aside the politically risky issue until after the November 2024 presidential election.

It would cap discretionary spending in the next two fiscal years, claw back unused COVID-19 funds, speed up the permitting process for some energy projects and stiffen work requirements for food aid programs for poor Americans.

It would also shift some funding away from the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service, though White House officials say that should not undercut enforcement in the near term.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who negotiated the deal with Biden, has predicted it will draw the support of most of his fellow Republicans. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he expects support from his side of the aisle.

It could face a rocky reception in the Rules Committee, normally closely aligned with House leadership. McCarthy was forced to put some skeptical conservatives on the panel as a price for winning the speaker’s gavel.

McCarthy told reporters on Monday he was not worried about the package’s prospects in the committee.

Initial reaction has been positive from financial markets, which would be thrown into chaos if the United States was unable to make payments on its securities, which form the bedrock of the global financial system.

But some investors are wary that the spending cuts secured by McCarthy could weigh on U.S. growth. Investors are also bracing for potential volatility in the U.S. bond market.

Republicans have argued that steep spending cuts are necessary to curb the growth of the national debt, which at $31.4 trillion is roughly equal to the annual output of the economy.

Interest payments on that debt are projected to eat up a growing share of the budget in the decades to come as an aging population pushes up health and retirement costs, according to government forecasts.

The deal would not do anything to rein in those fast-growing programs. Most of its savings would come by capping spending on domestic programs like housing, border control, scientific research and other forms of “discretionary” spending. Military spending would be allowed to increase over the next two years.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Additional reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House Rules Committee said it will meet on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the debt ceiling bill, which needs to pass a narrowly divided Congress before June 5, when the U.S. Treasury says it would run short of money to cover all its obligations.

Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday signed off on an agreement to temporarily suspend the debt ceiling and cap some federal spending in order to prevent a U.S. debt default. Biden said the deal was ready to move to Congress for a vote.

“The Committee on Rules will meet Tuesday, May 30, 2023 at 3:00 PM ET,” the panel said in a statement on Monday.

The deal, if approved, will prevent the U.S. government from defaulting on its debt and comes after weeks of heated negotiations between Biden and House Republicans. It has drawn fire from both hardline Republicans and progressive Democrats, but Biden and McCarthy are banking on getting enough votes from both sides.

McCarthy on Sunday predicted he would have the support of a majority of his fellow Republicans, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said he expected Democratic support.

The agreement would suspend the debt limit through Jan. 1 of 2025, cap spending in the 2024 and 2025 budgets, claw back unused COVID funds, speed up the permitting process for some energy projects, and include extra work requirements for food aid programs for poor Americans.

The 99-page bill would authorize more than $886 billion for security spending in fiscal year 2024 and over $703 billion in non-security spending for the same year, not including some adjustments. It would also authorize a 1% increase for security spending in fiscal year 2025.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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By Gram Slattery and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A handful of hard-right Republican lawmakers said on Monday they would oppose a deal to raise the United States’ $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, in a sign that the bipartisan agreement could face a rocky path through Congress before the U.S. runs out of money next week.

Although expected, the opposition illustrates the hurdles that Democratic President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy will have to overcome to see the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-controlled Senate pass the package.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, said the deal does not do enough to change the fiscal trajectory. “After this deal, our country will still be careening toward bankruptcy,” he said on Fox News.

Still, backers predicted it would clear Congress before the United States runs out of money to pay its bills, which the Treasury Department says will happen on June 5.

“This thing will absolutely pass. There’s no question about that,” said Republican Representative Dusty Johnson, who said he had talked to dozens of fellow lawmakers.

Biden said he had been working the phones, as well. “It feels good. We’ll see when the vote starts,” he told reporters.

The 99-page bill would suspend the debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025, allowing lawmakers to set aside the politically risky issue until after the November 2024 presidential election. It would also cap some government spending over the next two years.

A crucial first test will come on Tuesday, when the House Rules Committee takes up the bill, in a necessary first step before a vote in the full House. Though the panel is normally closely aligned with House leadership, McCarthy was forced to include some skeptical conservatives as a price for winning the speaker’s gavel.

One of those conservatives, Representative Chip Roy, said on Tuesday he did not support the bill.

“It’s not a good deal. Some $4 trillion in debt for – at best – a two-year spending freeze and no serious substantive policy reforms,” Roy wrote on Twitter.

Another panel member, Ralph Norman, has already come out against the agreement.

McCarthy told reporters on Monday he was not worried about the package’s prospects in the committee.

In the Senate, Republican Mike Lee also came out against the bill, which could point to a difficult vote there, where any member has the power to delay action for days. Democrats control the Senate by 51-49.

McCarthy has predicted it will draw the support of most of his fellow Republicans, who control the House 222-213. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he expects support from his side of the aisle — though many on his party’s left may vote “no” as well.

Representative Raul Grijalva, a progressive Democrat, wrote on Twitter that the bill’s changes to environmental rules were “disturbing and profoundly disappointing.”

Grijalva was referring to an element of the bill that would speed up the permitting process for some energy projects. The bill would also claw back unused COVID-19 funds, and stiffen work requirements for food aid programs for poor Americans.

It would shift some funding away from the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service, though White House officials say that should not undercut enforcement in the near term.

Initial reaction has been positive from financial markets, which would be thrown into chaos if the United States was unable to make payments on its securities, which form the bedrock of the global financial system.

But some investors are wary that the spending cuts secured by McCarthy could weigh on U.S. growth. Investors are also bracing for potential volatility in the U.S. bond market.

Republicans have argued that steep spending cuts are necessary to curb the growth of the national debt, which at $31.4 trillion is roughly equal to the annual output of the economy.

Interest payments on that debt are projected to eat up a growing share of the budget in the decades to come as an aging population pushes up health and retirement costs, according to government forecasts.

The deal would not do anything to rein in those fast-growing programs. Most of the savings would come by capping spending on domestic programs like housing, border control, scientific research and other forms of “discretionary” spending. Military spending would be allowed to increase over the next two years.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, Gram Slattery, Kanishka Singh, Steve Holland and Douglas Gillison; Editing by Chris Sanders, Andrea Ricci and Leslie Adler)

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By Kanishka Singh and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in the House of Representatives on Monday laid plans to advance a debt-ceiling deal with Democratic President Joe Biden starting Tuesday, with the aim of passing it through Congress before the U.S. government runs out of money early next week.

The House Rules Committee said it would take up the agreement on Tuesday afternoon, which could clear the way for a vote by the Republican-controlled chamber.

The package also must pass the Democratic-controlled Senate before Biden can sign it into law.

The U.S. Treasury Department says the United States could default on its obligations as soon as June 5 if Congress does not act.

Prospects are uncertain, as lawmakers on the left and the right have objected to the deal. Representative Raul Grijalva, a progressive Democrat, wrote on Twitter that its changes to environmental rules were “disturbing and profoundly disappointing.”

The newsletter Punchbowl, citing Republican sources, said a preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed the deal could save up to $2 trillion if its spending caps were left in place for six years, though much of that depends on which party controls Congress over that time. It was not clear when CBO would release its official estimate.

The 99-page bill would suspend the debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025, allowing lawmakers to set aside the politically risky issue until after the November 2024 presidential election.

It would cap discretionary spending in the next two fiscal years, claw back unused COVID-19 funds, speed up the permitting process for some energy projects and stiffen work requirements for food aid programs for poor Americans.

It would also shift some funding away from the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service, though White House officials say that should not undercut enforcement in the near term.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who negotiated the deal with Biden, has predicted it will draw the support of most of his fellow Republicans. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he expects support from his side of the aisle.

It could face a rocky reception in the Rules Committee, normally closely aligned with House leadership. McCarthy was forced to put some skeptical conservatives on the panel as a price for winning the speaker’s gavel.

McCarthy told reporters on Monday he was not worried about the package’s prospects in the committee.

Initial reaction has been positive from financial markets, which would be thrown into chaos if the United States was unable to make payments on its securities, which form the bedrock of the global financial system.

But some investors are wary that the spending cuts secured by McCarthy could weigh on U.S. growth. Investors are also bracing for potential volatility in the U.S. bond market.

Republicans have argued that steep spending cuts are necessary to curb the growth of the national debt, which at $31.4 trillion is roughly equal to the annual output of the economy.

Interest payments on that debt are projected to eat up a growing share of the budget in the decades to come as an aging population pushes up health and retirement costs, according to government forecasts.

The deal would not do anything to rein in those fast-growing programs. Most of its savings would come by capping spending on domestic programs like housing, border control, scientific research and other forms of “discretionary” spending. Military spending would be allowed to increase over the next two years.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Additional reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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“Good news,” Biden declared Sunday evening at the White House.

“The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default, for the first time in our nation’s history,” he said. “Takes the threat of a catastrophic default off the table.”

The president urged both parties in Congress to come together for swift passage. “The speaker and I made clear from the start that the only way forward was a bipartisan agreement,” he said.

The compromise announced late Saturday includes spending cuts but risks angering some lawmakers as they take a closer look at the concessions. Biden told reporters at the White House upon his return from Delaware that he was confident the plan will make it to his desk. The bill was posted Sunday evening.

McCarthy, too, was confident in remarks at the Capitol: “At the end of the day, people can look together to be able to pass this.”

The days ahead will determine whether Washington is again able to narrowly avoid a default on U.S. debt, as it has done many times before, or whether the global economy enters a potential crisis.

In the United States, a default could cause financial markets to freeze up and spark an international financial crisis. Analysts say millions of jobs would vanish, borrowing and unemployment rates would jump, and a stock-market plunge could erase trillions of dollars in household wealth. It would all but shatter the $24 trillion market for Treasury debt.

Anxious retirees and others were already making contingency plans for missed checks, with the next Social Security payments due soon as the world watches American leadership at stake.

McCarthy and his negotiators portrayed the deal as delivering for Republicans though it fell well short of the sweeping spending cuts they sought. Top White House officials were briefing Democratic lawmakers and phoning some directly to try to shore up support.

As Sunday dragged on, negotiators labored to write the bill text and lawmakers raised questions.

McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol on Sunday that the agreement “doesn’t get everything everybody wanted,” but that was to be expected in a divided government. Privately, he told lawmakers on a conference call that Democrats “got nothing” they wanted.

A White House statement from the president, issued after Biden and McCarthy spoke by phone Saturday evening and an agreement in principle followed, said the deal “prevents what could have been a catastrophic default.”

With the outlines of an agreement in place, the legislative package could be drafted and shared with lawmakers in time for House votes as soon as Wednesday, and later in the coming week in the Senate.

Central to the compromise is a two-year budget deal that would essentially hold spending flat for 2024, while boosting it for defense and veterans, and capping increases at 1% for 2025. That’s alongside raising the debt limit for two years, pushing the volatile political issue past the next presidential election.

Driving hard to impose tougher work requirements on government aid recipients, Republicans achieved some of what they wanted. It ensures people ages 49 to 54 with food stamp aid would have to meet work requirements if they are able-bodied and without dependents. Biden was able to secure waivers for veterans and homeless people.

McCarthy commands only a slim Republican majority in the House, where hard-right conservatives may resist any deal as insufficient as they try to slash spending. By compromising with Democrats, he risks losing support from his own members, setting up a career-challenging moment for the new speaker.

“I think you’re going to get a majority of Republicans voting for this bill,” McCarthy said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding that because Biden backed it, “I think there’s going to be a lot of Democrats that will vote for it, too.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he expected there will be Democratic support but he declined to provide a number. Asked whether he could guarantee there would not be a default, he said, “Yes.”

A 100-strong group of moderates in the New Democratic Coalition gave a crucial nod of support on Sunday, saying in a statement it was confident that Biden and his team “delivered a viable, bipartisan solution to end this crisis” and were working to ensure the agreement would receive support from both parties.

The coalition could provide enough support for McCarthy to make up for members in the right flank of his party who have expressed opposition before the bill’s wording was even released.

It also takes pressure off Biden, facing criticism from progressives for giving into what they call hostage-taking by Republicans.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CBS that the White House and Jeffries should worry about whether caucus members will support the agreement.

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(Reuters) – (The story saying the Texas Senate on Sunday was set to begin deliberations to permanently remove from office Attorney General Ken Paxton is wrong and withdrawn. The secretary of the Senate’s office said no time has been set for the impeachment trial. There will not be a replacement story.)

STORY_NUMBER: L1N37P09K

STORY_DATE: 28/05/2023

STORY_TIME: 1921 GMT

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By Moira Warburton, Diane Bartz and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday finalized a budget agreement with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling until Jan. 1, 2025, and said the deal was ready to move to Congress for a vote.

“This is a deal that’s good news for … the American people,” Biden told reporters at the White House after a call with McCarthy to put the final touches to a tentative deal they struck on Saturday night.

“It takes the threat of catastrophic default off the table, protects our hard-earned and historic economic recovery,” Biden said.

The deal, if approved, will prevent the U.S. government from defaulting on its debt and comes after weeks of heated negotiations between Biden and House Republicans.

It still needs to pass through a narrowly divided Congress before June 5, when the U.S. Treasury says it would run short of money to cover all of its obligations.

“I strongly urge both chambers to pass that agreement,” Biden said, adding that he expected McCarthy to have the necessary votes for the deal to pass.

The deal has drawn fire from hardline Republicans and progressive Democrats, but Biden and McCarthy are banking on getting enough votes from both sides.

McCarthy earlier on Sunday predicted he would have the support of a majority of his fellow Republicans, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said he expected Democratic support.

The agreement would suspend the debt limit through January 1 of 2025, cap spending in the 2024 and 2025 budgets, claw back unused COVID funds, speed up the permitting process for some energy projects and include extra work requirements for food aid programs for poor Americans.

The 99-page bill would authorize more than $886 billion for security spending in fiscal year 2024 and over $703 billion in non-security spending for the same year, not including some adjustments. It would also authorize a 1% increase for security spending in fiscal year 2025.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell applauded the agreement and called on the Senate to act swiftly to pass it without unnecessary delay once it has gone through the House.

“Today’s agreement makes urgent progress toward preserving our nation’s full faith and credit and a much-needed step toward getting its financial house in order,” McConnell said.

Members of the Republican hardline Freedom Caucus said they would try to prevent the agreement from passing in a House vote expected on Wednesday.

“We’re going to try,” Representative Chip Roy, a prominent Freedom Caucus member, said in a tweet.

McCarthy dismissed threats of opposition within his own party, saying “over 95%” of House Republicans were “overwhelmingly excited” about the deal.

“This is a good strong bill that a majority of Republicans will vote for,” the California Republican told reporters in the U.S. Capitol. “You’re going to have Republicans and Democrats be able to move this to the president.”

MCCARTHY NOT WORRIED

To win the speaker’s gavel, McCarthy agreed to enable any single House member to call for a vote to unseat him, potentially making him vulnerable to ouster by disgruntled Republicans. But he has said he is “not at all” concerned about that possibility during the debt ceiling debate.

Republicans control the House by 222-213, while Democrats control the Senate by 51-49. These narrow margins mean that moderates from both sides will have to support the bill if it is opposed by hardliners in either or both parties.

“I’m not happy with some of the things I’m hearing about,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

She praised the deal that she said would save Medicaid from benefit cuts while expanding the safety net to veterans and homeless people. “We kept the student debt responsibility that we have,” she said, referring to Biden’s policy of limited loan forgiveness.

Progressive Democrats in both chambers had said they would not support any deal that had additional work requirements for government food and healthcare programs.

The deal does add work requirements to food aid for some people aged 50 to 54, but White House officials said the carefully worded text would mean that roughly the same number of people would be subject to the requirements as is the case under current law.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton, Steve Holland, Diane Bartz, Daphne Psaledakis, Richard Cowan, Trevor Hunnicutt and Idrees Ali; Writing by David Morgan and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Heather Timmons, Mark Porter, Andrea Ricci, Deepa Babington and Lincoln Feast.)

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By Moira Warburton and Diane Bartz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday dismissed vehement opposition among party hardliners to a new agreement with President Joe Biden to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, predicting that most House Republicans would support the deal.

After weeks of tough negotiations McCarthy and Biden reached a tentative agreement this weekend, but now face the challenge of getting a deal through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate before June 5 to avoid a crippling first-ever default.

The president and House speaker were due to speak on Sunday afternoon to finalize the agreement, which has drawn fire from hardline Republicans and progressive Democrats. House Republicans expected to unveil legislation to pass the deal later on Sunday.

Members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus said they would try to prevent the agreement from passing the House in a vote expected on Wednesday. “We’re going to try,” Representative Chip Roy, a prominent Freedom Caucus member, said in a Sunday tweet.

But McCarthy dismissed threats of opposition within his own party, saying “over 95%” of House Republicans were “overwhelmingly excited” about the deal.

“This is a good strong bill that a majority of Republicans will vote for,” the California Republican told reporters in the U.S. Capitol. “You’re going to have Republicans and Democrats be able to move this to the president.”

To win the speaker’s gavel, McCarthy agreed to enable any single House member to call for a vote to unseat him, potentially making him vulnerable to ouster by disgruntled Republicans. The speaker said he was “not at all” concerned about that possibility.

Republicans control the House by 222-213, while Democrats control the Senate by 51-49. These narrow margins mean that moderates from both sides will have to support the bill, if the compromise loses the support of the far left and far right wings of each party.

“I’m not happy with some of the things I’m hearing about,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said he expected Democratic support for the deal on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” but declined to estimate how many of his party members would vote for it.

Democrats, who were due to be briefed on the deal at 5 p.m.(2100 GMT) by the White House, had feared the agreement would parallel a Republican debt ceiling plan that passed the House last month and would have imposed deep cuts on domestic spending.

Democratic Representative Jim Himes told Fox News that the deal’s relatively “small” scope could attract support from members of Biden’s party.

The deal suspends the debt ceiling until January 2025, after the November 2024 presidential election, while boosting spending on the military and veterans’ care, and capping it for many discretionary domestic programs, according to sources familiar with the talks.

McCarthy also told Fox News that the deal includes a “paygo” measure that requires the administration to ensure that new spending does not increase the deficit. The deal would also impose a 1% across-the-board spending cut should Congress fail to enact 12 appropriations bills by Oct. 1.

Roy complained on Twitter on Sunday that the agreement would leave intact an expansion of the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service set in place when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also expressed concern about the deal’s potential effect on U.S. defense and Washington’s support for Ukraine.

“Do not intend to default on debt, but will not support a deal that reduces the size of the Navy and prevents continued technological and weapons assistance to Ukraine,” Graham tweeted.

“Punting at your opponent’s one-yard line isn’t a winning strategy,” Republican Senator Mike Lee said on Twitter.

Representative Dan Bishop and other hardline Republicans were sharply critical of early deal details that suggest Biden has pushed back successfully on several cost-cutting demands on Saturday, signaling that McCarthy may have an issue getting votes.

“Utter capitulation in progress. By the side holding the cards,” Bishop said.

Progressive Democrats in both chambers have said they would not support any deal that has additional work requirements for food and healthcare programs. This deal does, sources say, adding work requirements to food aid for people aged 50 to 54.

Several credit-rating agencies have put the United States on review for a possible downgrade, which would push up borrowing costs and undercut its standing as the backbone of the global financial system.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and Diane Bartz in Washington; Writing by David Morgan; Editing by Heather Timmons, Mark Porter and Andrea Ricci)

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