Pelosi says Congress, including GOP, must raise debt ceiling to pay off 'Trump's credit card'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Congress must act to raise the debt ceiling because of the debt incurred under former President Trump, saying, “We’re paying the Trump credit card.” 

The California Democrat argued Trump racked up $7 trillion in debt over his four-year presidency.

"We're paying the Trump credit card with what we would do to lift the debt ceiling," Pelosi said during a weekly press conference. "When Trump was president, we Democrats supported the of lifting the debt ceiling, because it's the responsible thing to do. I would hope that the Republicans would act in a similarly responsible way." 

Pelosi, the leader of the Democrat-controlled chamber, spoke one day after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told her there was an urgency in raising the debt ceiling because, she said, the country's ability to pay its bills will likely end sooner than expected. 

The Treasury Department used so-called "extraordinary measures" to continue to pay off the federal government's bills after Congress missed a July 30 deadline to raise or suspend the ceiling. 

However, Yellen those measures will likely be exhausted by mid-October, citing the pandemic and related federal aid.

Whether to lift the ceiling is again a highly partisan issue on Capitol Hill.

Last month, 46 Senate Republicans pledged to not help Democrats raise the debt limit, citing their $3.5 trillion spending package, full of money for progressive initiatives like expanding government-funded health care, according to Business Insider.

Republicans also argue Democrats could get their multi-trillion-dollar spending measure to President Biden’s desk without a single Republican vote if they use the legislative maneuver in the Senate known as budget reconciliation.