Biden Mocks Republican Claims Student Debt Forgiveness Was For the Privileged: ‘I Know Who Student Loan Borrowers Are’
President Joe Biden spoke Friday afternoon about the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision rejecting his student loan forgiveness program that would have erased some $400 billion in debt. Biden took the opportunity to scoff at Republicans who argued the debt relief would help the “privileged”:
Republican officials say that student loan forgiveness is a giveaway to the privileged. Hear that loud and now: the privileged. I love the concern for the privileged. But I know who student loan borrowers are in this country, and so do all of you. It’s the couple putting off having a child until they can find their way to get with their debt. That’s who they are.
They’re young, putting off buying their first home so they can get out from under student loans. Hope is on the horizon, thanks to relief I planned last year, and today’s court snatches it away from them. I get it. I get it. I hear this. And I’m concerned about it, but today’s decision has closed one path. Now we’re going to pursue another. I’m never going to stop fighting for you. We’ll use every tool at our disposal to get you the student debt relief you need, and reach your dreams. It’s good for the economy, it’s good for the country, and it’s going to be good for you…we’re going to get this done, God willing.
As Biden prepared to leave the podium, Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News shouted out a question that drew the president’s ire.
“Mr. President, why did you give millions of borrowers false hope? You doubted your own authority here in the past.”
“I didn’t give any false hope,” a visibly agitated Biden said. “The question was, whether or not I would do even more than what was requested. What I did I thought was appropriate, it was able to be done, and it would get done. I didn’t give borrowers false hope. But the Republicans snatched away the hope that was given — and it’s real. Real hope.”
The next reporter asked whether Biden overstepped his authority, as the Supreme Court charged in its decision.
Biden shot back, “I think the court misinterpreted the Constitution.”
Watch the CNN clip above.
