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- Trump said at a CNN Town Hall this week that the GOP should "do a default" if they don't get spending cuts to raise the debt ceiling.
- Sen. JD Vance defended Trump's comments to Axios, saying he was just giving "political advice."
- Still, other Republican senators said defaulting is not an option.
Former President Donald Trump weighed in on the debt ceiling crisis this week — and he thinks Republicans' best bet is to hurdle into economic catastrophe. Ohio's freshman GOP senator is listening.
During a CNN Town Hall on Wednesday night, the network's anchor Kaitlan Collins asked Trump how he views the current debt situation in the country. Since January, both sides of the aisle have been sparring over the best approach to raise the debt ceiling and ensure the US can keep paying its bills, but the country is inching dangerously close to running out of money — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US could default on its debt as early as June 1.
Trump thinks that Republicans should not budge on their bill that trades a debt ceiling increase for major spending cuts, even as President Joe Biden has maintained he won't accept anything other than a clean raise, without any cuts attached.
"I say to the Republicans out there, congressmen and senators, if they don't give you massive cuts you are going to have to do a default," Trump said. "And I don't believe they're going to do a default because I think the Democrats will absolutely cave because you don't want to have that happen. But it's better than what we're doing right now because we're spending money like drunken sailors."
"You might as well do it now because you'll do it later," he added. "Because we have to save this country. Our country is dying. Our country is being destroyed by stupid people, by very stupid people."
Sen. JD Vance argued that Trump was just trying to help his party. Vance told Axios that "what the president is doing is really giving political advice ... not financial advice."
"He's basically saying that if the Democrats are going to play a game of chicken, Republicans have to be willing to play that game too," Vance said, adding that "I think what President Trump is doing is fundamentally the right thing, which is Republicans can't preemptively break ranks here or we're going to have a terrible negotiating position in the talks with Biden."
Still, most lawmakers in both parties agree that a default would be bad — and Congress should do its job to make sure that doesn't happen.
GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, for example, told Axios that he disagreed with Trump's comments and that "there is no world in which [a default] happens." His fellow Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis echoed that sentiment, saying a "default should be avoided, period."
"I think we should do our job," Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy previously told Insider. "I think we should not default on our debt. Congress should do the job that we've, without exception up until this point, done."
Biden was supposed to meet with top congressional lawmakers on Friday for the second time this week to discuss the debt ceiling, but multiple reports said the meeting has been postponed so staffers can continue making progress with the negotiations on their end. Politico reported that potential areas of compromise could include energy permitting reforms and rescinding unspent pandemic funds, but people familiar to the administration told Politico Biden will not budge on student-loan forgiveness, and Medicaid and food assistance.