On Monday, President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy were scheduled to reconvene in order to continue their discussions aimed at preventing a catastrophic default on U.S. debt. Ahead of this meeting, they had a phone conversation on Sunday while the president was returning from the Group of Seven summit in Japan. Despite previous negotiations last week failing to produce a resolution, both teams were expected to commence their discussions on Sunday evening, as stated by McCarthy.

“My discussion with the president, I think, was productive,” the California Republican told reporters.

“Look, he’s sitting on Air Force One, he had been sitting in meetings with other world leaders, and it’s hard to try to get that update as we’re going across there,” he was quoted as saying by NPR.

“I think we can solve some of these problems if he understands what we’re looking at, but I’ve been very clear to him from the very beginning — we have to spend less money than we spent last year.”

Following the conclusion of the G-7 summit on Sunday, President Biden attributed the deadlock to Republican lawmakers, who have demanded substantial spending reductions as a condition for granting authorization for the federal government to increase its debt.

Consequently, he decided to cancel his scheduled visits to other countries in the area in order to return to Washington, as the federal government is projected to exhaust its funds in early June.

“It’s time for the other side to move off extreme positions because much of what they’ve already proposed is simply, quite frankly, unacceptable” the president said.

Biden, who’s insisted on raising the debt ceiling with no strings attached, said, “It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no deal to be made solely on their partisan terms.”