"I am disappointed in the White House, they are missing in action," Sen. Rick Scott told reporters. "This should be the biggest issue that they are dealing with every day, they should be having daily meetings with [House Speaker] Kevin McCarthy to figure out how we get this done."
"Chuck Schumer should be talking to all of us in the Senate because it takes three groups to get this done. Biden has to sign something, the House has to pass something and the Senate has to pass something."
Scott was joined by a number of other congressional lawmakers, including Sen. John Barrasso, with the same message to the US president outside the Capitol building.
"Joe Biden is playing Russian roulette with the American economy," Barrasso said. "It's time for Joe Biden to take his head out of the sand and sit down and negotiate with Kevin McCarthy."
US President Joe Biden will not negotiate on the debt ceiling with Republicans but is willing to have a separate talk about the budget and appropriations, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier Tuesday.
The Biden administration wants Congress to raise the debt ceiling without attaching other economic policy proposals. However, McCarthy has said a "no-strings-attached" debt limit increase will not pass the lower chamber.
Biden is expected to hold a meeting with congressional leadership in the coming week to discuss the debt ceiling.
Last week, House Republicans passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would raise the United States’ debt ceiling and reduce the deficit by cutting government spending. The bill would also recover unspent COVID-19 relief funds.
The US government will likely begin defaulting on its debt by June 1 if the congressional limit on the country’s debt servicing is not raised by then, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a letter to McCarthy.