President Trump and the rest of his administration have complete confidence that Congress will raise the debt ceiling by late September, when the government’s authority to borrow money will expire, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday.
“I think there is no scenario where the government won’t be paying its bills,” Mnuchin told reporters at the White House. “I am 100 percent confident.”
Mnuchin said he, Trump, and Vice President Pence met in the Oval Office on Thursday to discuss the upcoming congressional battle over the debt ceiling increase.
“The president and I are om on the same page, and we’re speaking on a regular basis on this,” Mnuchin said.
Trump had raised eyebrows on Thursday with a pair of tweets that blamed House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for creating a “mess” by refusing his request to tie the debt limit increase to legislation that reformed the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“What the president said was that his strong preference had been that, when they passed the VA bill before they left, that they attached the debt ceiling to that, so that we wouldn’t be dealing with this in September,” Mnuchin said.
The Treasury secretary was referring to a bill Trump signed on Aug. 12 that poured emergency funding into a VA program that allows veterans to seek medical care in the private sector.
“What I have said before, my strong preference is that we have a clean debt ceiling,” Mnuchin said, referring to a debt limit increase that includes no additional or unrelated legislative items.
“I have had discussions with the leaders in both parties in the House and Senate and we are all on the same page,” Mnuchin said.
But the Cabinet official expressed disappointment that lawmakers neglected the debt ceiling issue before departing Washington for a month-long recess.
“The president and I wish they had raised the debt ceiling before they left,” Mnuchin said.
In addition to extending the government’s borrowing authority, members of Congress must also authorize a federal budget and pass a continuing resolution to keep funds flowing, all before the end of September.
