Biden tells reporter to ‘shush’ as he tries to calm debt-limit fears at G-7

An irritated President Biden told a reporter to “shush up” Saturday as he tried to calm jittery allies’ fears that his White House will fail to reach a debt-limit deal, potentially plunging the US and the world into economic crisis.

“I still believe we’ll be able to avoid a default and we’ll get something decent done,” Biden told the media as he sat down for a bilateral meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during the G-7 economic summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

“This  —  this goes in stages,” he said of the negotiations between House Republicans and the White House  —  hours after Friday’s talks broke down acrimoniously, dashing hopes for a smooth resolution of the budget impasse.

But Biden snapped when an Australian reporter tried to interject a query.

“Shush up, OK?” he scolded, before launching into a rambling explanation of the deal-making process.

“I’ve been in these negotiations before,” Biden said.

“What happens is the first meetings weren’t all that progressive. The second ones were. The third one was. And then, what happens is they — the carriers go back to the principals and say, ‘This is what we’re thinking about.’ And then, people put down new claims.”

Back in Washington, however, negotiators remained deadlocked, with no talks occurring Saturday.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy blamed “the Bernie Sanderses and the socialist wing” of the Democratic Party for the impasse – which, he said, would remain until Biden’s return from Japan.

“Unfortunately, the White House moved backwards,” McCarthy told reporters as he left Capitol Hill Saturday. “And I think the Bernie Sanderses and the socialist wing of the party have had a real effect on the president … I don’t think we’re going to be able to move forward until the president can get back in the country.”

White House negotiators “actually want to spend more money than we spent this year,” McCarthy complained.

“We can’t do that. We all know how big this deficit is, we also know that with inflation … we have to spend less than what we spent this year.”

Biden and McCarthy have just days to strike a deal to raise the debt ceiling — the government’s borrowing limit, set by Congress — before the potentially disastrous consequences of a debt default.

The Treasury Department has warned that it will run out of funds to pay incurred debt – currently at $31 trillion – on June 1.

House Republicans passed legislation last month that will allow for another $1.5 trillion of borrowing — in exchange for a host of spending cuts and a 10-year limit on federal budget increases.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledged that the US debt dispute has been a “subject of interest” in the president’s summit meetings with other world leaders.

“This is not generating alarm,” Sullivan insisted in a Saturday press briefing. “I would just say that countries are keenly interested in what is a, you know, significant story. And the president has been able to tell them, you know, that he believes that we can get to a good result here.”