The tentative deal raising the debt ceiling that President Joe Biden and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) agreed to over the weekend hasn’t won over far-right Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who complained Tuesday that it’s “milquetoast”–an apparent nod to former President Donald Trump’s criticism earlier that night of Fox News guest host Kayleigh McEnany.
McEnany, filling in on The Ingraham Angle, asked Roy what he considers a “realistic alternative” to the deal, which would raise the current $31.4 trillion debt ceiling until January 2025. It would also, among other things, cut about $20 billion in IRS funding and put in place new work requirements for some individuals on food stamps and those in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
“Everything that we’re seeing out of… this deal hatched this weekend is pretty milquetoast, if that word might mean something to you,” Roy said, just a few hours after Trump wrote a misspelled Truth Social post directed at McEnany, whom he called “Milktoast.”
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In the post, Trump accused his former White House press secretary of giving out “the wrong poll numbers” on Jesse Watters Primetime while discussing his lead in Iowa over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up,” Trump claimed. “She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll. The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!”
It’s unclear which poll McEnany and Trump are referring to, though an Emerson College poll from last Thursday (before DeSantis announced his candidacy) found Trump leading by 42 points.
Interestingly, Roy endorsed DeSantis over Trump back in March.
As to the contents of the tentative deal, Roy explained:
“The real problem we face is the $4 trillion in debt, and they’ve pushed this thing up to Jan. 1, 2025 with an uncapped amount which we think will be about $4 trillion. And we didn’t sign up to basically free spending for $4 trillion in debt,” he said.
“The alternative is pretty simple: you have about $28 or $29 billion in COVID funds, you have $80 billion in IRS money—all of us agreed it should go away,” he continued. “The No. 1 thing we campaigned on was getting rid of that IRS money.”
Earlier Tuesday, the debt ceiling deal passed the House Rules Committee, where Roy is a member, and is now headed to the full House. The deal must also pass in the Senate and be signed into law before the Monday default deadline.
