US President Joe Biden speaks while hosting debt limit talks with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and their Congressional Democratic counterparts in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, US, May 9, 2023 (Reuters)

US President Joe Biden remained unclear about his talks with Republicans on raising the debt ceiling, telling his press pool on Saturday they were "moving along" but are "not there yet."

"They are moving along," Biden told the White House press pool, adding that there was "real discussion" but that negotiators were "not there yet."

"We’ve not reached the crunch point yet," the US President said.

He did not answer the question about the date of his next meeting with congressional leaders.

The White House and Republicans in Congress have been locked in a dispute on a deal that would avert an unprecedented national default as early as June.

The Financial Times on Saturday cited people familiar with the matter as saying that the pact was beginning to take shape ahead of a meeting between Biden administration officials and aides to the Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

At the heart of the deal is reportedly a plan that will limit domestic spending.

On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that pursuing a political policy of standing on the edge of the abyss over the US debt ceiling crisis might lead to "serious economic costs" even without a default.

Last week, Yellen warned Congress through ABC News that failing to resolve the debt ceiling issue on their part might create a "constitutional crisis" and send out a ripple effect across the financial markets.

Biden said on Tuesday that he might not attend the G7 summit for presidents next week if the debt ceiling issue is not resolved by then.

This comes after a Republican bill to increase the debt limit and cut down on government spending was recently passed after a narrow 217-215 vote in the US House of Representatives - a major win for Republican US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy - but seems to be a struggle at the moment.

His proposal included raising the US debt limit by $1.5 trillion to avert the default of the world's biggest economy.

Yellen has been urging Congress to either suspend or raise the debt limit for the same reason as McCarthy, adding that her agency has started discussing "extraordinary measures" to avoid a default, which the US has never done since the debt ceiling has been raised 22 times between the years 1997 and 2022.