McConnell Slams Schumer’s ‘Childish Behavior,’ Warns He Will Not Help Democrats With Debt Ceiling in December

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warned President Joe Biden on Friday that he will not help the Democrats again in December, when the temporary debt ceiling increase expires, because of the “tantrum” thrown by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) following the vote.

In a letter to Biden, McConnell slammed Schumer’s leadership, writing that he “marched the nation to the doorstep of disaster.”

“Embarrassingly, it got to the point where Senators on both sides were pleading for leadership to fill the void and protect our citizens,” McConnell said. “I stepped up.”

He went on to castigate Schumer for “a rant that was so partisan, angry, and corrosive that even Democratic Senators were visibly embarrassed by him and for him.”

In his speech — which caused Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to bury his head in his hands — Schumer knocked Republicans for “insist[ing] they wanted a solution to the debt ceiling, but [saying] Democrats must raise it alone by going through a drawn-out, convoluted, and risky reconciliation process.”

Schumer delivered his remarks immediately after 11 Republicans, including McConnell, voted to advance the debt ceiling bill.

McConnell said Schumer’s “childish behavior only further alienated the Republican members who helped facilitate this short-term patch.”

He concluded: “I am writing to make it clear that in light of Senator Schumer’s hysterics and my grave concerns about the ways that another vast, reckless, partisan spending bill would hurt Americans and help China, I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement.”