During an appearance on "CNN This Morning," Rep Michael McCaul (R-TX) was put on the spot by host Kaitlan Collins about the contentious debt negotiations between Democrats and Republicans and asked to address Donald Trump's suggestion that the country should default on its debts.
Appearing on CNN to talk about a multitude of topics, Collins shared a clip of Trump from his controversial CNN town hall with her, stating, "I say to the Republicans out there, if they [Democrats] don't give you massive cuts, you're going to have to do a default."
"Are those comments from the GOP [presidential] frontrunner reckless?" Colins pressed.
"Well, look, uh, we -- this is my tenth term in Congress and we go through this -- I have seen this movie many times and we go to the brink. Sometimes the government's been shut down," McCaul began.
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"It doesn't favor anybody and I think responsibly, it's not the right move," he conceded. "And, you know, I think it's important that we reach a compromise. I think we will, you know, in this case. You know, we have done this before and the few times we shut down the government it's been very temporary and we have seen the markets respond in a very negative way."
Turning back to Trump, he added, 'So, you know, I think that -- I think what the former president is trying to say is we are at $32 trillion debt right now for the nation. We are handing that down to our children and we have to start, you know, taking responsibility for that. We can't sustain this path. $32 trillion debt that we are going to pass down is, to me, it really is immoral and irresponsible."
"Yeah, what he was saying is it was a different standard when he was in office and he said they shouldn't use the debt limit as a negotiating tactic and he says it's different because he is no longer president," host Collins corrected the GOP lawmaker.
Watch the video below or at this link.
CNN 05 25 2023 08 37 50 youtu.be
