'Crisis averted': Biden to tout economic bonafides in first Oval Office address

In his first Oval Office address Friday evening, President Joe Biden will speak to a “crisis averted” as he’s set to sign a deal to raise the nation’s debt limit and avoid an economic catastrophe.

“Essential to all the progress we’ve made in the last few years is keeping the full faith and credit of the United States and passing a budget that continues to grow our economy and reflects our values as a nation,” Biden will say from the room historically reserved for major presidential remarks, according to excerpts of his speech from the White House.

“And that’s why I’m speaking to you tonight. To report on a crisis averted and what we are doing to protect America’s future. Passing this budget agreement was critical. The stakes could not have been higher.”

The president’s decision to deliver a primetime address from the Oval speaks to just how close the country was to an economic meltdown, averted just days before Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the U.S. would run out of cash to pay its bills for the first time in the nation’s history.

Biden is expected to sign the Bipartisan Budget Agreement, which passed the Senate late Thursday after receiving 314 votes in the House, before Monday’s June 5 deadline. The president could add his signature to the bill as soon as Saturday, the White House said.

“No one got everything they wanted but the American people got what they needed. We averted an economic crisis and an economic collapse,” the excerpts say.

Biden’s remarks will cap weeks of tense negotiations between the White House, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and top Republicans. The nail-biting back and forth left the country, and the world, on the edge as the so-called X date — on which economists predicted globe turmoil would occur if an agreement wasn’t met — rapidly approached.

The Biden-McCarthy deal marked a victory for the president five months into a divided government, a period in which it remained unclear whether the White House could find common ground with House Republicans.

While Biden isn’t expected tout the legislation as a Democratic win on Friday, his team does plan to use the deal to his political advantage and to portray the president as a steady figure in contrast with the more extreme wings of the Republican Party, POLITICO reported this week. The thinking is that voters will reward the president for working in a bipartisan manner.

Despite the bill’s success in Congress, some progressives and other Democrats remain frustrated about the president’s move to negotiate around the debt ceiling at all. Others have continued to voice concerns about the new work requirements for some recipients of food assistance, and Biden’s approval of the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline that would carry natural gas across West Virginia and Virginia.

On Friday evening, Biden will defend the priorities he says the White House “protected.”

“We’re cutting spending and bringing deficits down. And, we protected important priorities from Social Security to Medicare to Medicaid to veterans to our transformational investments in infrastructure and clean energy,” the president will say.