A leading Democrat in the House has cast doubt on the announcement made by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, that they had reached an agreement on the debt ceiling.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington, stated on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that she and the Progressive Caucus, of which she is the leader, may not support the agreement.

And because Republicans have only a five-vote majority and many Freedom Caucus members have already stated they will not support the agreement, Speaker McCarthy will likely need Democratic support.

“I don’t know yet, Jake, because I haven’t seen the texts,” she said to anchor Jake Tapper who asked if she and her caucus would vote to pass the legislation. “You know I’m not a big fan of in-principle or frameworks. That’s always, you know, a problem if you can’t see the exact legislative texts.

“And we’re all trying to wade through spin right now. That’s certainly what you heard from my good colleague on the other side of the aisle, is a lot of spin. But I think it will come down to what the legislative text is,” the representative said.

“At the end of the day, I think the American people have to understand we’re at the brink of default, we don’t have a deal yet, we don’t know how many Republican votes can be produced, and it’s all because Republicans said that they wanted to cut the deficit,” she said.

“I know you hate it when I do this, but I’ll give you a yes or no question right now,” Tapper said.

“I may or may not answer you,” she quipped.

“That’s fair,” the anchor said. “But Democrats watching right now at the White House, your friend Hakeem Jeffries, others, do they still have to worry about the progressive caucus and whether or not your caucus will support –”

“Yes,” the caucus leader said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, they do,” Tapper said.

“Yes, they have to worry,” Jayapal said.

In the meantime, Speaker McCarthy appeared on “Fox News Sunday” where he declared victory and stated that there was nothing in the agreement that would benefit Democrats.

“Have you talked to Minority Leader(Rep. Hakeem) Jeffries? Sounds like he will bring Democrat votes to the table. What is your conversation like with him about getting this across the finish line?” anchor Shannon Bream said to the Speaker.

“I wanted Congress to work differently and treat Hakeem the way I wanted to be treated. We can disagree, I want him to know about everything,” the Speaker said. “Everything is not political. Every time there is agreement and negotiation between the president and Congress, both parties come together and vote for the bill. Both of them talk about it. I don’t work with Hakeem to say, I need this many votes, I think you will get a majority voting for the bill because it is a good bill. The president agreed. There will be a lot of Democrats that will vote for it.”

“Right now the Democrats are very upset. But one thing Hakeem told me, there’s nothing in the bill for them. There’s not one thing in the bill for Democrats,” he said.

More on this story via Conservative Brief:

One of the main things Republicans got in the deal was the expansion of work requirements for SNAP benefits, CNN reported. CONTINUE READING…