NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Fresh off his debt limit meeting with congressional leaders, President Joe Biden will travel to New York on Wednesday to tout his administration's economic agenda and raise money for his 2024 reelection campaign.
Biden will speak at SUNY's Westchester Community College in Valhalla to "discuss why Congress must avoid default immediately and without conditions," as well as "how the House Republican Default on America Act will cut veterans' health care visits, teachers and school support staffs, and Meals on Wheels for seniors," according to a White House advisory.
Notably, the address will take place in a district he won in 2020 but is now represented by House Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who flipped the seat from former Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. The Republicans' victories in the 2022 midterm elections in New York helped the party narrowly retake control of the House chamber for the first time since 2018.
Biden last visited the region in Yonkers last November to campaign for Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York Democratic ticket ahead of the election. In October, Biden visited the Hudson Valley, including a stop at an IBM facility in Poughkeepsie that is a hotspot for mainframe development and quantum computing.
The White House will use the trip to trumpet what it says is economic progress under the Democratic president — pointing to the number of jobs created during his term and a fresh focus on domestic manufacturing — while warning that an unprecedented debt default would threaten millions of jobs and raise the prospect of a recession.
Back in Washington, senior White House officials and congressional aides were starting to discuss a path to avert a catastrophic debt default as soon as June 1, in preparation for another meeting between Biden and top Capitol Hill leaders later this week. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy showed few signs that he and House Republicans were willing to budge from their debt limit proposal, and Biden underscored again that their plan was a non-starter with him.
Biden in his remarks also will invoke the specter of cuts to veterans’ care, an issue that has become particularly sensitive in the back-and-forth rhetoric between the White House and congressional Republicans. When the president suggested during the meeting that the House GOP plan could end up cutting benefits to veterans, McCarthy told reporters that he shot back that was a "lie." But Biden disputed that it was a lie, saying that the across-the-board cuts would affect veterans’ care and other vital domestic programs.
With debt talks showing minimal progress, the White House hopes that Biden’s public relations campaign — starting in a congressional district that will be key for Democrats seeking to wrest House control back from Republicans next year — increases pressure on GOP lawmakers who can’t afford politically to alienate moderate voters.
Still, Lawler accepted the invitation from the White House, "maybe to their surprise," the lawmaker said in an interview Tuesday. He said it was a "little disappointing" that Biden was spending his time traveling his district rather than negotiating with other leaders in Washington.
"Nobody wants to see us default. Nobody wants to see us not raise the debt limit. But they also don’t want to see us continue to spend money that we don’t have," Lawler said. "When I’m out talking to folks in my community, my district, by and large they agree with my stance."
Despite Lawler’s presence at the event, at Westchester Community College, Biden is "always going to be honest with the American people," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.
"The president is going to drive home the impact of these current discussions that we’re having — the economy, how it affects real hardworking Americans. That’s what you’re going to hear from the president," she said. "He’ll be very clear about that. He’ll be clear about what could potentially happen."
House Republicans, in their debt measure that passed in April, are aiming for $4.5 trillion in deficit savings through cuts in spending, eliminating tax breaks for investing in clean energy, and undoing the Biden administration’s proposal that would forgive student loan debt. The White House has made it clear that Biden would veto that legislation.
Democrats, who control the Senate by 51-49, are calling for a “clean” debt limit hike without any conditions such as spending cuts, but any such measure would require the support of at least nine Republican senators, and most of them say they will oppose doing so.
While in New York on Wednesday, Biden, who formalized his reelection campaign on April 25, will also hold a pair of fundraisers.
Former Blackstone executive Tony James will first host Biden for a campaign fundraiser, according to a donor memo reviewed by CNBC. The event will cost $25,000 per person and will be attended by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the memo said.
Following the James meeting, Biden will attend a campaign fundraising dinner at the Upper East Side home of George Logothetis, the executive chairman of the worldwide corporation the Libra Group, a source told the network.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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