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‘His Big Plan Is to Ask the President a Question?’: McCarthy Mocked for His Handling of Debt Ceiling Negotiations
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is being mocked for his handling of the run-up to critical negotiations over the debt ceiling with President Joe Biden – negotiations that, if they fail, could shut down the federal government and even throw the economy into a tailspin.
McCarthy first decided to take his fight – which includes drastic cuts to life-saving Social Security and Medicare, a non-starter for Democrats – not to the Oval Office but to Twitter.
“Mr. President: I received your staff’s memo,” tweeted the Speaker, still damaged from having to make still-secret promises to his own caucus members while taking 15 tries to get elected. “I’m not interested in political games. I’m coming to negotiate for the American people.”
That memo, according to CNBC, “sought to portray the 3:15 p.m. ET meeting as a showdown, one between a Democratic president who will protect Social Security, Medicare, health insurance and food stamps, and a House Republican majority that will demand cuts to these programs in exchange for helping Democrats avoid a catastrophic default on the nation’s debt.”
Meanwhile, many on Twitter responded by accusing him of trying to act like a “tough guy” with the President.
Comedian Dana Goldberg mocked McCarthy, tweeting, “Nothing says ‘I don’t want to play games’ like tweeting a response to the President of the United States.”
Former Lincoln Project Executive Director Fred Wellman had even harsher words for the Speaker.
“You were elected by a bunch of idiots in Bakersfield and made Speaker by a handful of insurrectionists and nutjobs. You don’t speak for the American people. You barely even speak for the House of Representatives, Kev,” he said.
Wednesday morning, again not taking his battle to the Oval Office, McCarthy aimed higher.
At the National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance, a far-right wing event sponsored by several Christian organizations, at least five of which appear on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups, McCarthy prayed for God to open his and President Biden’s hearts.
“Father, I want to lift up those who are not here today. I want you to open their hearts,” McCarthy prayed, asking for “the patience of Job,” and “the intellect the leadership that you gave David.”
“Father, I want to lift up the president. Father, you know I will meet with him today. Father, I ask. I asked that you open both of our hearts that you put our meaning, our meaning that seeks your truth.”
Later, McCarthy, heading to the White House, told reporters, “I’ve got a big plan. The first question is does the President wants to continue reckless spending or find a way that we can be responsible, sit down and find common ground where we put ourselves on a path to budget. Make a balanced budget,” he said, according to NBC News’ Kyle Stewart and CNN’s Manu Raju.
Many were unimpressed.
Aaron Fritschner, the Deputy Chief of Staff and Communications Director for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) asked, “His big plan is to ask the president a question?”
Georgetown Law professor Josh Chafetz offered this in response:
“Step 1: Ask loaded question
Step 2: ???
Step 3: … also ???”
Journalist Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch, noted: “McCarthy’s opening position: A balanced budget. So basically cut a quarter of federal spending or he’ll burn down the world.
I’m sure the political media will be outraged.”
Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas asked, “If he’s got a plan, where is it?”
The Biden-McCarthy meeting began at roughly 3:17 PM and ended at approximately 4:41 PM, according to observations from Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman.
McCarthy talked to reporters after his meeting with the President, saying he felt they could find some “common ground.”
After first tweeting about his upcoming meeting with President Biden, then literally praying to God on-camera in public about his upcoming meeting with President Biden, then talking to reporters about his upcoming meeting with President Biden, McCarthy stood outside the White House after his first round of talks with the President and told reporters: “I’m not going to negotiate this in the press.”
Watch below or at this link.
McCarthy is asked after meeting what Biden about what programs he thinks should be cut. He says he’s not going to negotiate in public. pic.twitter.com/JtKRVBmu9N
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 1, 2023
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A top Trump official says global power alliances are shifting, observing that nations closest to Russia are now increasingly aligned with President Donald Trump’s interests.
Fox News host Martha MacCallum told Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum that she had spoken with President Trump earlier Friday, “and he basically said that Japan is a better ally to the United States than NATO, which, when you look at the big picture in history, is a pretty stunning statement.”
She also asked the secretary, “do you think that our orientation, in terms of our alliances, is changing?”
“Well, clearly, it is,” Burgum replied.
“What we might consider our traditional allies from Europe have been less than reliable,” he said, “and from the time that we’ve spent working with those folks in Eastern Europe, the closer they are to Russia, the more aligned they are with President Trump, and the more … aligned they are on energy policy.”
READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House
Offering Japan as an example, Burgum said that nation “is 120 million people living in the size of an area of North Dakota, and they’ve got complete dependence on foreign energy. They want to buy energy from the United States.”
He explained that it takes eight days by ship from Anchorage to Tokyo, as opposed to 30 days from the Middle East.
“People are desperate to have the stronger relationship with the United States right now on energy,” he claimed.
President Trump’s policies are “absolutely working to build alliances around the world,” Burgum said.
MacCallum noted that “the alliance seems to be the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Japan have a good relationship with us as well right now, and a lot of repair needed in Europe.”
Burgum: What we might consider our traditional allies from Europe have been less than reliable. The closer they are to Russia, the more aligned they are with President Trump. pic.twitter.com/GUENLTlSHo
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 20, 2026
READ MORE: Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready
Image via Reuters
Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman has suffered a historic collapse in support, plunging 108 points among Pennsylvania Democrats from his strong standing just three years ago.
The Pennsylvania lawmaker, who often appears on Fox News and has accused Democrats of having “Trump derangement syndrome,” enjoyed a positive 68 percent approval rating in 2023, his first year in office.
Now, he stands at a negative 40 percent, according to CNN analyst Harry Enten.
“John Fetterman is doing as well with Pennsylvania Democrats as the New York Giants are liked in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Enten said on Friday, while noting that in 2023, Fetterman was a “Democrat liberal darling.”
READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House
Now, Enten says, Fetterman is “down there with the Titanic.”
Enten compared Fetterman to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who he says is “not well liked by the Democratic base nationwide.”
Schumer’s popularity rating is about minus two points.
Leader Schumer “is 38 points more popular than John Fetterman is with Pennsylvania Democrats.
Enten also compared Fetterman to several senators who were unpopular and lost their primaries.
“His net popularity with his own party is worse than all senators who lost a primary this century,” Enten noted online.
READ MORE: Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready
“He is below the lowest,” Enten said. “The ones who actually got beat in a primary. There is no historical analog to this. That is how unpopular John Fetterman is with Pennsylvania Democrats.”
If Fetterman runs for re-election in 2028, what happens?
“There is basically no doubt in my mind that if Fetterman decides to run for re-election as a Democrat, he will face a primary challenge and it will be a very competitive one,” said Enten.
“The bottom line is this: John Fetterman, when you look, when you look at his net popularity rating, minus 40 points, he’s on a completely other planet from Chuck Schumer, who is also unpopular, and he is on a different galaxy entirely from other incumbents who actually lost re-election — far less popular than them.”
John Fetterman’s had a 108 pt drop in his net approval with PA Dems since 2023.
His net rating is -40 pt net approval with them.
His net popularity with his own party is worse than all senators who lost a primary this century.
There’s no historical analog to his unpopularity. pic.twitter.com/r9S0gZjql6
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) March 20, 2026
READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Think She Survives This’: Gabbard Faces Blowback After ‘Devastating’ Testimony
Image: Public Domain
George Conway, once a leading Never-Trump Republican and now a Democratic congressional candidate, has issued a stark warning, saying that Americans remain perilously unprepared for President Donald Trump’s potential interference in November’s election.
Conway, who founded the Anti-Psychopath PAC, said in a video posted on Friday that Trump’s “brain is mush, and he says, with conviction, things that he said the opposite of five minutes before or five days before.”
He says that Trump “has the capacity to declare that the polls are fake — and that if an election goes the same way that the polls do, well, that’s fake, too, and that’s why we need to ignore an election, and that’s why we need the voter rolls.”
READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House
But Conway warns that despite what happened on January 6, 2021, the American public is not ready for what Trump could do to the 2026 election.
“I don’t think people are sufficiently prepared, notwithstanding what happened in 2021, for the possibility that he will try to f — — with this election. And he will.”
“I mean, he’s already basically telling us that’s what he’s gonna do, just the same way he told us he would do that in 2020.”
READ MORE: Trump Re-Endorses Congressman He Dumped — Then Dangles Job to His Rival
Conway warns, “I don’t think truth means anything to him.”
Trump, he adds, “doesn’t care about the distinction between truth and lies. And so, does he know he’s lying? It doesn’t matter to him. Truth has no meaning to him. All that has any meaning to him in any given moment is whether or not he’s receiving praise or adulation, or some kind of a reward — like money, or a peace prize.”
“And what comes out of his mouth is whatever is in his head at the moment that he wants to believe or he wants other people to believe,” Conway says. “He’s divorcing himself from reality because he thinks he can create his own reality and the great megalomaniacs of history have always done that.”
Trump is in a “very dangerous place psychologically,” says Conway,”and he is a man, don’t forget — he talked about nuclear weapons the other day — he’s got 5,500 nuclear weapons.”
“He’s gonna trash everything once and for all,” Conway warns.
“@realdonaldtrump doesn’t care about the distinction between truth and lies. And so does he know he’s lying? It doesn’t matter to him. Truth has no meaning to him. All that has any meaning to him in any given moment is whether or not he’s receiving praise or adulation … He… pic.twitter.com/HN4hPng3al
— George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 (@gtconway3d) March 20, 2026
READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Think She Survives This’: Gabbard Faces Blowback After ‘Devastating’ Testimony
Image by Presia Debauch via Flickr and a CC license
Closer to Russia, Closer to Trump: US Official Says Alliances Are Shifting
‘Down There With the Titanic’: Fetterman Has Historic Polling Swing Says Analyst
Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready
Trump Re-Endorses Congressman He Dumped — Then Dangles Job to His Rival
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