“But listen, this is not easy in any shape or form,” he added.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden left Washington Friday evening to spend the weekend at Camp David, expressing optimism about a quick deal shortly before leaving. White House negotiators working on his behalf continued communicating with House Republicans via phone and virtual meetings.
Biden continues to speak with his negotiating team multiple times a day and is signing off on offers and counteroffers, according to a White House official, granted anonymity as they were not authorized to contextualize the talks on record.
Earlier Saturday, GOP negotiator Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) told reporters that a deal is hours or days away. McCarthy declined to get more specific.
The California Republican said negotiators are working through “a number of different things.”
The two sides were trading text late into Friday night, with McHenry noting GOP negotiators worked until roughly 2:30 a.m. as both sides raced to try to clinch a long-sought agreement.
Earlier this week, GOP lawmakers and the White House were closing in on a tentative plan to cap spending for two years in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling for two years.
But they are still trying to work out some of the stickiest points of negotiation, including GOP demands for new work requirements. The White House characterized those as “designed to tie the most vulnerable up in bureaucratic paperwork.”
As of Saturday, negotiators were also at loggerheads on permitting reform, according to people familiar with the talks, raising the possibility that it gets dropped. A coalition of GOP-aligned groups warned McCarthy that it might be better to leave it out of the negotiations, adding: “A bad permitting deal is worse than no deal at all.”
McHenry acknowledged that they are down to the final issues, adding: “What I didn’t anticipate is we’d have a very short list for a very long time.”
By midday, McCarthy, McHenry and other lead negotiator Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) walked out of the Capitol, telling reporters they were going on a Chipotle run. McCarthy quipped to a gaggle of reporters upon his return not to read too much into his lunch selection.
Late Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the country would run out of funds by June 5, crystallizing the deadline facing Congress. Prior estimates said the country could default as early as June 1.
McCarthy said he has not spoken with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in the last 24 hours and reiterated that he would give lawmakers 72 hours to read the bill text before a vote. That means if text is released on Saturday, the House could vote as soon as Tuesday.
That pledge could also drive Congress close to the June 5 deadline. The Senate is expected to need at least a few days to clear a deal, which McCarthy estimated would be approximately 150 pages or less.
Conservatives, meanwhile, warned that they didn’t like what they were hearing about an emerging plan. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) tweeted worry that Republicans were giving away too much in exchange for increasing the debt limit, comparing the House GOP bill with what may be in the bipartisan agreements.
“If work requirements are what become the centerpiece of a ‘deal,’ then there should be no deal. Talk about holding the wrong line,” he wrote.
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) demanded Republicans not “fix” a debt crisis that he says Democrats created, adding “No Republican capitulation.”
McCarthy needs a majority of his conference to back a deal, as part of an understanding Republicans stuck during the speaker’s race. On Saturday the California Republican acknowledged that he is likely to lose votes from his side of the aisle.
“I didn’t get every single member to vote for the first one,” McCarthy said. “I didn’t get every single member to vote for me for speaker.”
Burgess Everett contributed to this report.