House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that "extreme" Republicans would have benefited politically from a failure to reach debt limit deal and the subsequent economic collapse that could have followed.
"From the very beginning, they had two objectives. They either wanted to jam these very deep painful cuts to things like Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid down the throats of the American people," Jeffries told NY1 political anchor Errol Louis on "Inside City Hall" Tuesday night. "And then plan B for them was to just force a default, let the economy crash, trigger a job-killing recession."
But the Democratic congressman from Brooklyn credited President Joe Biden for helping the country avoid a default.
"The economy's not going to crash. It will not be a default," Jeffries said.
Biden announced Sunday evening that he and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an agreement "in principle" on a debt limit deal after weeks of negotiations. The debt limit agreement includes a two-year budget deal that would keep U.S. spending flat in 2024 and impose limits in 2025.
The package would also expand some work requirements for food stamp recipients and would make changes to an environmental law in an attempt to streamline reviews to build new energy projects.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen set a June 5 deadline before the federal government would hit a default.
The proposal must still be approved by Congress, but some members of both parties have already publicly said they will vote against it.
Jeffries, who has represented New York's 8th congressional district in southern and eastern Brooklyn since 2013, believes that the bill will pass.
"We will not default. And so we're going to be able to work this out at the end of the day, I believe," Jeffries said.
However, the Crown Heights native did not commit to the number of Democrats who will support the bill, instead calling on Republicans to deliver necessary votes.
"Republicans have a responsibility to deliver at least two-thirds of their caucus in our view, which means around 150 folks," Jeffries said. "But this is legislation that was negotiated by House Republicans exclusively with the Biden administration. And so they have a responsibility to deliver."
He also urged Democrats to support the "strong resolution," saying that Biden kept spending at current levels and did the "best that he could under very difficult circumstances."
"President Biden from very beginning indicated that while he believes we should be investing more in the health and safety and economic wellbeing of the American people at minimum, we've got to hold spending where it currently is at, and effectively, that is the agreement that he was able to work out," Jeffries said.