A U.S. senator told Breitbart News on Wednesday evening that President-elect Donald Trump’s push to have the debt ceiling increased as part of a government funding deal this week “makes sense” from Trump’s perspective but warned it is unlikely Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer would agree to such a push.
The senator, who asked for anonymity to discuss the very fluid situation on Capitol Hill just days before a government funding deadline on Friday, said Schumer only has one real piece of “leverage” over Trump next year, and that leverage is the debt ceiling deadline.
“It makes sense that Trump wants to get the debt limit off of his plate before he gets there because of course it’s not his problem,” the senator said in a brief phone interview. “But obviously Schumer doesn’t want to give up this problem because it’s the leverage he retains. It’s pretty much the only leverage he retains.”
Asked if Schumer is salivating over using the debt ceiling in the late spring or early summer to extract concessions over Trump, the senator told Breitbart News, “Of course he is—because what else does he have?”
The senator said that other Democrat senators are not all thinking as far as Schumer himself.
“No, they’re just all on the floor freaking out right now,” the senator said. “Everything is in turmoil here and nobody knows what happens next.”
This senator added that using the debt ceiling as a political tool is not healthy for the country.
“I don’t see the debt limit as being a particularly useful tool as both sides just use it to bludgeon the other,” the senator said. “We always pay the debt, that’s what we do as Americans.”
Going over the debt limit is worse than even a government shutdown, too, the senator said.
“There are no winners, but we do actually shut the government down sometimes but we don’t ever go over the debt limit,” the senator told Breitbart News. “There’s a big difference between those two.”
