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‘Turd Sandwich’: MAGA Members of Congress Hate on Debt Deal

Freedom Caucus - Credit: The Washington Post via Getty Images
Freedom Caucus - Credit: The Washington Post via Getty Images

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is making the rounds touting his debt ceiling agreement with the Biden administration, but the die-hard Trump wing of the party is very unhappy with the deal. Even though the final text of the agreement has yet to be released, GOP Rep. Chip Roy called the deal a “turd sandwich.”

Senator J.D. Vance — who Trump enthusiastically supported in the 2022 elections — posted, “The more I learn about this debt ceiling deal, the more I think it’s bad news. Deficit reduction isn’t even my most important issue. But we didn’t get permitting reform. We didn’t get border security. It’s not entirely clear we got anything.”

Rep. Ken Buck, who pushed Trump’s stolen election conspiracy theory, bashed the deal as “completely unacceptable” and “a major win for Joe Biden” while Rep. Lauren Boebert whined that “Conservatives making these half-baked compromises year after year is exactly why we’re $31 TRILLION DOLLARS in debt right now.”

“No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote,” wrote Rep. Bob Good.

Included in the deal to raise the debt ceiling for two years, according to a GOP fact sheet, are a cap on non-defense spending, expanded work requirements for certain adults receiving food aid, and the restarting of paused student loan payments. But for the MAGA loyalists, the agreement is not fiscally conservative enough.

“Catastrophic deal,” former Trump advisor Steve Bannon wrote in a series of posts on conservative social media network Gettr, calling the agreement “a total surrender.” The deal, Bannon told Newsweek in an interview, will “condemn the United States to decades of lost economic growth”

Sen. Rand Paul, meanwhile, tweeted, “Fake conservatives agree to fake spending cuts… Conservatives have been sold out once again!”

But far-right Republicans aren’t the only politicians in Washington disappointed by the deal. Liberal Democrats have also expressed discontent with the terms. Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, said on CNN Sunday that the White House should be concerned about earning support from members of her caucus, saying she is “not happy with some of the things I’m hearing about.” Jayapal took issue with expanded work requirements for food aid, saying they are “bad policy.”

“This is saying to poor people and people who are in need that we don’t trust them,” she said, noting that the amount of federal aid a SNAP recipient gets is minimal. “The average amount of assistance for SNAP, for example, is about $6 per day.”

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