When Trump was in office, he showed little interest in cutting spending, ran huge deficits, and demanded that the debt ceiling be raised without conditions. At the CNN town hall, however, he said the GOP should run the car over the cliff if Biden doesn’t agree to everything in the ransom note. What should we take from this?
Three things. First, it is a frank admission that he is more interested in his own ambitions than the welfare of the American people. Second, he thinks a debt ceiling disaster would benefit him politically; he is almost certainly right about that. Third, he sees this issue, unsurprisingly, as a no-holds-barred struggle for dominance between Biden and the GOP. For him, every relationship and every interaction is a struggle for power, and he is determined that his side should win, the American people be damned.
Don’t think the GOP crazoids didn’t hear him. As a result, it will be even more difficult for McCarthy to make any sort of reasonable deal.