‘Shrink the room’: How Biden and McCarthy struck a debt-limit deal and staved off a catastrophe

By SEUNG MIN KIM, STEPHEN GROVES and FARNOUSH AMIRI
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Perhaps most critical to locking up the debt-limit deal were President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s five handpicked negotiators, three men and two women unknown to most outside government. They were tasked to work out an agreement between Biden and McCarthy — with no direct involvement by any other members of Congress. That advice to “shrink the room” and avoid lawmakers’ constant sniping was on the advice delivered in part by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The outcome provides a tale of an underestimated House speaker and a president who tuned out the noise even from his own party to ensure a default would not happen on his watch.