House Speaker McCarthy opens next phase of debt ceiling fight with direct pitch to Wall Street

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will make his case that failing to strike a deal and lift the debt ceiling could upend global markets from the most high-profile market of all: The New York Stock Exchange.

It's an unusual setting for a political speech, but McCarthy's visit Monday will echo former President Ronald Reagan's visit to the floor in 1985, his first of two as president.

As Congress returns to from a two-week recess to a summery capital where the Treasury Department's mid-summer debt ceiling deadline feels tangibly closer, McCarthy finds himself in an increasingly difficult position.

President Joe Biden has not budged in three months on his refusal to negotiate over the debt limit, and has so far dismissed Republican efforts to tie a debt ceiling vote to a simultaneous deal on budget negotiations.

On Monday, McCarthy is expected to paint a bleak picture of what a debt default would look like for global markets, and use that as a pivot to call on Biden to come to the table.

In a statement Monday morning in advance of McCarthy's speech, White House spokesman Andrew Bates accused the California Republican of "holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, threatening our economy and hardworking Americans' retirement."

McCarthy responded to the White House in a tweet, saying: "Make no mistake: the longer President Biden waits to be sensible, to find agreement, the more likely it becomes that his administration will bumble into the first default in our nation's history."

Meanwhile, McCarthy's own caucus of House Republicans isn't making his job any easier, since the GOP only has a slim majority. The one thing the entire caucus agrees upon is that spending cuts are needed. But what gets cut, and by how much, is a source of increasingly bitter disagreement.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.