Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley: “I’m going to vote no on the deal”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (KY3) - House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden’s debt ceiling bill cleared a major hurdle Wednesday night after passing in the House of Representatives. The bill now heads to the Senate, where it also needs to pass before June 5 to avoid a catastrophic default. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley said he would not be supporting it.

“I’m going to vote no on this deal for a really simple reason, it does nothing to get rid of our trade deficit with China, and it does nothing to bring back good blue-collar jobs to the state of Missouri,” said Sen. Josh Hawley. “We’ve lost 60,000 of them to China in the last 20 years, four million nationwide. My view is if you want to put the American economy on strong footing, do something for working people, bring back industry to the United States, and this deal doesn’t do it.”

Even though Sen. Hawley said he would not be voting in favor of the bill, he likes some aspects.

“I like to work requirements,” said Sen. Hawley. “I think work requirements are a good thing, but I would come back to we need to do more for working people. Let’s talk about the people who are already working, the people who are trying to provide for their families, the people who have lost their jobs or have seen their wages go down.”

As for how Speaker McCarthy has handled the entire situation, Sen. Hawley said he isn’t sure.

“I can’t speak for his caucus. I mean, I’m not a member of the House,” said Sen. Hawley. “I don’t have a vote on any of that, and I don’t really have any knowledge about the inner workings of his conference. I do think that he successfully brought Joe Biden to the negotiating table. You know, remember, Biden said he wouldn’t negotiate at all. He ended up negotiating very substantively, so I think that the speaker did a good job with that.”

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