Joe Biden will cut short a planned overseas trip and return to Washington on Sunday, after Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy offered the first hint that lawmakers were moving towards a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avert an unprecedented government default.
The US president is set to depart on Wednesday for G7 meetings in Japan. He had originally been scheduled to travel on to Papua New Guinea and Australia, but those plans have been scrapped, the White House said Tuesday.
The change in plans came as Biden met the four top members of Congress — Republicans McCarthy and Mitch McConnell and Democrats Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries — in the Oval Office on Tuesday to try and make progress on a potential deal to raise the debt ceiling and avert default.