The president had what sounds like a somewhat testy meeting with Republican congressional leaders about the debt ceiling, a day after the “clean” vote failed in the House. The Washington Post reports:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), whose budget plan has been widely criticized by Democrats because it would drastically overhaul Medicare, complained that the plan “has been misdescribed by the president and many others.”

According to a Republican official, Ryan told Obama that his criticism of the GOP budget plan was a sign that the president was thinking about his reelection campaign, the Associated Press reported.

But Ryan did not confirm that account, telling reporters that it “wasn’t exactly what I said.” He added: “I just said, ‘we’ve got to take on this debt and if we demagogue each other at the leadership level, then we’re never going to take on our debt.’ ” He said the exchange was “not at all” confrontational.

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), in a television interview with Andrea Mitchell, just remarked that the president said the right things about the national debt but frequently doesn’t end up doing the right things.