At a press conference in front of his entire caucus Saturday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he had been summoned back to the White House for another round of conversations about raising the debt ceiling. Reid will meet with President Obama as well as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
The high-profile chat comes as Reid tries to wrangle his debt ceiling plan through the Senate. As it stood officially at the start of the presser, Reid is three votes short on attaining cloture for his bill after 43 Senate Republicans went on record in a letter saying they refuse to support it. Four Republicans did not sign the letter.
Reid told reporters the letter wasn’t written in stone. He said the same of his bill, signalling a willingness to make changes to the proposal to round up more support.
“A number of them have already agreed to work with us,” Reid said, referring to the 43 signatories on the GOP letter. “Whether that bears fruit, we’ll see.”
Reid said the negotiations center around adding trigger mechanisms to the bill — automatic legislation that would kick in and require more cuts if the debt-reducing commission created by Reid’s proposal doesn’t hit its goals.
Reid said he’s open to including triggers, but wants to include some options that will raise revenues as well.
Earlier Saturday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called on Reid to let the bill die in a vote and then restart bipartisan debt talks with President Obama. Reid is continuing to hold out, apparently hoping to win more Republican Senators to his side. At the press conference, Reid said Obama remains part of the process.
“The president has been involved,” Reid said. “He’s putting in the time.”
“The president has always been willing to be fully engaged,” Reid added.
UPDATE: Word came through at 5:20pm that the White House talks had ended. No sign of a follow-up presser so far.
