Lindsey Graham Attacks McCarthy Over Debt Deal: ‘Total Disgust’

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, expressed “total disgust” on Monday with political leaders over defense spending in the agreement to raise the debt ceiling reached by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Biden and McCarthy, a California Republican, reached a deal over the weekend to raise the debt limit while also implementing GOP-backed cuts to federal spending after weeks of negotiations. The deal comes just days before the country is expected to default on its obligations—which experts say would wreck havoc on the global economy—leaving Congress roughly one week to get the bill to Biden’s desk.

However, the debt ceiling bill, a compromise in which both Democrats and Republicans made concessions, has divided the GOP. McCarthy and his allies have presented the agreement as a major victory for Republicans, arguing that Democrats got “nothing” in the bill. But many conservatives have said the bill did not go far enough in its spending cuts.

Meanwhile, Graham is sounding the alarm over the agreement with regards to defense spending. The agreement would cap defense spending at Biden’s request for the fiscal year of 2024, which was $886 billion, roughly 3.3 percent.

Graham voiced support for raising the debt limit and pledged to use “all powers available” to him to hold an amendment vote to change this provision of the bill, knocking the political leaders who negotiated the bill.

“I support raising the debt limit for 90 days to give us a chance to correct this disaster for defense,” Graham wrote on Twitter. “Have total disgust for political leaders’ decision to make it remotely possible to gut our national security apparatus at a time of great peril. Take this absurd idea off the table.”

When reached by Newsweek for further comment on Monday, a Graham spokesperson referred to the senator’s tweets on the matter.

The Republican senator also explained during an appearance on Fox News Sunday that while he “respects McCarthy,” his agreement to maintain Biden’s defense budget is unacceptable because the increases are “below inflation.” Instead, he said, lawmakers should cut spending by reducing the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) and clawing back unused COVID-19 funds.

“The Biden defense budget was a joke before, and if we adopt it as Republicans we will be doing a great disservice to the party of Ronald Reagan. The biggest winner of the Biden defense budget is China because they’ll have a bigger navy; and it will be Putin,” Graham said.

He then voiced his concerns about how the defense spending might affect the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

“There’s nothing in the budget for Biden to help Ukraine win a war that they’re on the verge of driving the Russians out. So I like Kevin a lot, but don’t tell me that the Biden defense budget fully funds the military,” Graham said.

Most legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes to pass due to the filibuster, meaning the bill to raise the debt ceiling will likely need bipartisan support in Congress’ upper chamber, unless leaders move to temporarily lift the filibuster on the agreement, as they did in 2021.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, has also voiced opposition to the agreement on Sunday, describing it on Twitter as a “blank check” for Democratic spending.