Biden: Cantor Didn’t ‘Walk Out’ Of Debt Talks — He Told Me Before Quitting!

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

At a House Democratic retreat, Vice President Joe Biden mounted a somewhat strange defense of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) conduct during last summer’s debt limit talks.

“When Cantor walked out of those talks, he didn’t walk out,“ Biden said, according to The Washington Post’s Felicia Sonmez. “He called me the day before and said, ‘Joe, I can’t come back.’”

Biden’s remarks, while not inaccurate, obscure the real issue, which is not that Cantor literally walked out of the room during a meeting, but that Cantor quit the discussions when they shifted from spending cuts to revenues.

The vice president also said he likes Cantor personally.

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: