Not long after their distributing their hot takes about how the preservation of religious liberty threatens to bring back Jim Crow, the Friday cast of CNN News Central freaked that “the wheels are coming off” for people who will now have to repay their loans after the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan cancellation scheme in Biden v. Nebraska.
Co-host Sara Sidner worried that, “So, 43 million students who are still paying those off which can be the very young who have just gotten out of school or those who-- doctors, lawyers who have these huge loans, they will have to start paying them back, and that the COVID restrictions are also coming off as well. So, the wheels are coming off for the people who thought that maybe they would have a break here.”
Won’t someone think of the financial problems facing doctors and lawyers!
Moving right alone, fellow co-host John Berman tossed the segment over to White House correspondent Arlette Saenz, who asked Biden on Thursday if the Court was “rogue,” for overturning affirmative action.
Saenz was a good stenographer for the White House, noting it is “expressing disapproval of this decision” and previewing Biden’s speech for later in the day.
She also noted that a source told her “the administration is going to try to planning to quote ‘make crystal clear to borrowers and their families that the Republicans are responsible for denying them the relief that President Biden has been fighting to get them,’ but there’s no question, this is a huge blow to an initiative that the White House had really put forth back August.”
Later on, the crew would welcome executive director of the Student Debt Crisis Center Cody Hounanian to get his reaction to the ruling with Sidner asking, “You yourself, I understand have $30,000 in outstanding debt and one of the big issues that I’m seeing is that the price of education has gotten so high, that it has really injured their abilities to do well in this world after school, what is your reaction to the Supreme Court knocking down President Biden’s debt-- student loan forgiveness program?”
The cost of college would have almost certainly sky rocketed if the Court ruled in Hounanian’s because there would be even less of an incentive of universities to control costs. As it was, Hounanian stuck to the case and played the race card, “You are right, I am a student loan borrower, the descendent of refugees and immigrants who really believe in education as the pathway to the American dream, and with the burden of student loan debt really holding back generations of families, we're seeing that American dream slip out of our hands.”
Greatly upset he will now be in the same position as private student loan borrowers, Hounanian continued, “I also want to point out it is not to cost of college that’s increased, inflation and the continued impacts of the pandemic have made everything from rent to food much more expensive, and that why this relief was so needed, and I know that many people like me are really worried about concerned about their financial wellness and stability moving forward.”
Berman followed up by wondering, “who do you blame here for this? Is this something that you put on the White House for, as Kate was suggesting, not getting something done they promised or on the Supreme Court for blocking it?”
It was almost a good question. Berman should’ve asked whether Biden implemented something he knew would get struck down, but did it anyway in order to scapegoat the Court’s conservative justices. As for Hounanian, he proclaimed “today's decision is, you know, squarely in the hands of the Supreme Court justices and it’s, you know, unfortunate that such a transformative policy was in the hands of the unelected decision makers in our government, but I don’t think this is the end of the road.”
Those justices and their concern for the law and not Hounanian’s desire to avoid paying his bills, how radical.
Here is a segment for the June 30 show:
CNN News Central
6/30/2023
10:43 AM ET
SARA SIDNER: So, 43 million students who are still paying those off which can be the very young who have just gotten out of school or those who-- doctors, lawyers who have these huge loans, they will have to start paying them back, and that the COVID restrictions are also coming off as well. So, the wheels are coming off for the people who thought that maybe they would have a break here.
ELIE HONIG: Exactly
JOHN BERMAN: You know who has a bunch of lawyers? Any White House and this White House has got a bunch of lawyers who have been anticipating this decision, so let’s go over to Arlette Saenz there to find out, Arlette, what the White House plans to do now?
ARLETTE SAENZ: Well, the White House is expressing disapproval of this decision from the Supreme Court which struck down a key program for President Biden that made good on a campaign promise. Now, what we’re also told they’ve been preparing behind the scenes for quite some time for the possibility of this decision and a source within the White House told us moments ago that President Biden is going to be announcing new actions to protect the student borrowers a little bit later today when he is expected to speak.
Now, we don't know exactly what these protections might entail, but it does speak to the steps that the White House has been preparing for behind the scenes. Additionally, this source said that part of their argument today is that the administration is going to try to planning to quote “make crystal clear to borrowers and their families that the Republicans are responsible for denying them the relief that President Biden has been fighting to get them,” but there’s no question, this is a huge blow to an initiative that the White House had really put forth back August.
They had estimated it could impact up to 40 million borrowers, and they have had already had millions of applications that they processed, millions of applications that they had approved, and this is an issue that President Biden spoke fervently about and other Democratic candidates, as well, during that 2020 primary as well as the general election, so this is going to be certainly a political issue for President Biden going forward, but in that statement from that source we heard, it also makes clear that they are trying to point out that they believe it is the Republicans who are the ones who are denying this relief to students going forward.
So, we will see what more the White House has to say, I’m sure we’ll get a paper statement, likely to hear from President Biden himself a little bit later today as well as they are facing this major blow to one of the signature initiatives of his administration.
…
SIDNER: We are going to be joined now by Cody Hounanian, the executive director of the Student Debt Crisis Center. You yourself, I understand have $30,000 in outstanding debt and one of the big issues that I’m seeing is that the price of education has gotten so high, that it has really injured their abilities to do well in this world after school, what is your reaction to the Supreme Court knocking down President Biden’s debt-- student loan forgiveness program?
CODY HOUNANIAN: Well, thank you for having me, I wish I was here with good news, but I’m absolutely devastated, the way that many others, millions of people across the country are.
You are right, I am a student loan borrower, the descendent of refugees and immigrants who really believe in education as the pathway to the American dream, and with the burden of student loan debt really holding back generations of families, we're seeing that American dream slip out of our hands. But I also want to point out it is not to cost of college that’s increased, inflation and the continued impacts of the pandemic have made everything from rent to food much more expensive, and that why this relief was so needed, and I know that many people like me are really worried about concerned about their financial wellness and stability moving forward.
BERMAN: What do you do? What are you going to do now that these payments are coming due, and who do you blame here for this? Is this something that you put on the White House for, as Kate was suggesting, not getting something done they promised or on the Supreme Court for blocking it?
Well, today's decision is, you know, squarely in the hands of the Supreme Court justices and it’s, you know, unfortunate that such a transformative policy was in the hands of the unelected decision makers in our government, but I don’t think this is the end of the road.
What we’re going to do next is continue to mobilize a movement around student debt relief and student debt cancellation, and the we know the president has other tools in his tool kit, other legal authorities to provide broad base student debt cancellation to millions of Americans, so like many other important issues in America, one Supreme Court decision isn’t going to fight progress, so our fight continues.
