Paul Ryan said Thursday President Trump’s decision to side with Democrats in neogitations over a short-term debt ceiling extension was motivated by a desire for bipartisanship in the face of two major hurricanes hitting the U.S.
Trump reached a deal on Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s terms at a meeting with them and GOP leaders at the White House Wednesday just hours after Ryan criticized the Democrats for proposing a short-term raising of the debt ceiling, calling it “unworkable.”
Asked Thursday at a breakfast event at the Newseum about Trump reaching a deal with Democrats with him and Mitch McConnell in the room, Ryan laughed: “I sort of noticed that.”
“My read of the monent and the situation is … the president believes — and I completely understand this — we got two hurricanes hitting us right now,” Ryan said.
“What the president didn’t want to do is have some partisan fight in the middle of a response to this,” he explained. Instead, Trump wants a “bipartisan moment” for the country.
Ryan said that he personally favors longer-term extensions of the debt ceiling in order to provide certainty to bond markets.
