- Sen. Lindsey Graham vented that the GOP had been "shot in the back" by a deal to raise the debt ceiling.
- The agreement between Senate leaders allows Democrats to raise the debt ceiling along party lines.
- Graham reportedly warned his colleagues that Trump would be "very engaged" by the issue.
Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday launched a blistering attack on GOP congressional leaders for putting Republicans in a position to get "shot in the back" over a deal with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling, according to The Hill.
Congress is conducting procedural ju-jitsu to lift the US's borrowing cap for already-accrued debts in order to prevent the country from defaulting on its debts and triggering a global financial crisis.
After months of pledging that no Republicans would help Democrats raise the ceiling, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell brokered a deal with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to enable Senate Democrats to do so along party lines. Such machinations are needed because the upper chamber is divided between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans with Vice President Kamala Harris as a tie-breaker.
Graham said during a closed-door party lunch that this deal "led them on a charge up a hill and they were getting shot in the back," a senator who attended the event told The Hill. Others senators in the room told the news outlet that it wasn't clear if Graham was specifically blaming McConnell for the situation, but confirmed that the South Carolina Republican disapproves of McConnell's handling of the standoff.
Graham, an ally and confidante of former President Donald Trump, also said "the president is going to be engaged on this issue" when it comes time for the 2022 midterms, The Hill said, and warned his colleagues that those who support McConnell's deal will face Trump's wrath.
"I think this is a mistake, but we'll see what happens," Graham told reporters after the lunch, per The Hill. "We've been telling our Republican base for four months, '[Democrats] are spending money by themselves, they should raise the debt ceiling by themselves through reconciliation.'"
Trump, for his part, has railed against McConnell for paving the way for Democrats to raise the cap, insulting the Republican leader as a "Broken Old Crow" and excoriating him for not using the debt ceiling as leverage to try to block the Build Back Better Act, Democrats' $1.75 trillion social spending package.
"And we have a thing called the debt ceiling. And this morning, I hear he gave it up. He gave it up for practically nothing. He could have used the debt ceiling card. As an example, he did a couple of things. He gave them a two-month extension to get their act together, and they got their act together," Trump said in a Wednesday interview with conservative radio Hugh Hewitt.
"The debt ceiling is psychological," Trump added. "This is not psychological. This is fact. This will destroy our country, the fabric of the country as we know it."
A first bill, passed by the House on Tuesday, creates a one-time exemption to the Senate filibuster specifically to allow a simple majority to raise the debt ceiling. The legislative vehicle for this measure also staves off cuts to Medicare, which are scheduled to go into effect on January 1.
The measure, which the Senate will take up on Thursday on a compressed timeline for debate, requires at least 10 Republicans' votes to pass. If that first bill is passed and signed into law by President Joe Biden, it will pave the way for Democrats to raise the debt ceiling on their own with a simple majority in a second bill shortly thereafter.