Schumer says agreement reached for short-term debt cap deal

Senator Schumer says an agreement has been reached for a short-term debt cap deal. Yahoo Finance’s Jessica Smith shares the details.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Let's begin, though, this hour with the very latest developments out of Washington. Our very own Jessica Smith tracking that for us. And Jess, I just said crisis averted, but I think we need to add one more word in there, which is for now.

JESSICA SMITH: Right, Senate leaders did announce a deal that would raise the debt ceiling over the short-term. They're announcing this deal to raise the debt limit until early December. Now the details of this deal have not been made public quite yet other than early December. But reportedly, they have agreed to an increase of $480 billion, which would give the government enough to pay its bills until December 3rd.

Now, that is also the time where Congress has kicked the can for a government shutdown. So a government shutdown is looming in early December as well. So it seems like December is going to look a whole lot like September did. Now, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did make this offer for a short-term deal yesterday.

And he said this morning on the floor that this takes away the Democrats' argument that they don't have time to raise the debt limit or suspend the debt limit via reconciliation. They have said that it's too risky, that it takes too long. Well, now, McConnell says it's time-- they are going to have enough time to do that.

But this is not solving the long-term issue here because Democrats still say they're not going to use reconciliation to raise the debt limit. They say it's too risky. They say it sets a bad precedent. And we heard from many Democratic senators yesterday saying that is not an option. So this debate is going to continue on in early December, leading up to early December. And we'll have to see how this plays out because we're going to be seeing the same exact scenario over again in just a few weeks.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, kicking the can down the road. Thanks so much for that, Jess. And of course, we're going to get more into the latest developments out of Washington with Senator Mike Braun of Indiana. He's going to be joining us later this hour to discuss the very latest negotiations around the debt ceiling and much more. That's at 11:40 AM Eastern.