 As a veteran myself, this is a slap in the face and the other piece that not a lot of people are talking about is that the military uses educational benefits as a key recruiting tool. I feel like we've reached the Joker phase of the Biden presidency. All we're lacking now is the face paint and a purple suit. He's riding a parade float down Pennsylvania Avenue just tossing money out the window here. The day I got elected to the Senate, I had over $100,000 still in student loans and I was able to pay off because I wrote a book and from that money I was able to pay it and I would never, I'd still be paying it. There is a real risk if you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans and can't get a job, Joe Biden just gave you 20 grand. Like holy cow, 20 grand. Maybe you weren't going to vote in November and suddenly you just got 20 grand and if you can, you know, get off the bong for a minute and head down to the voting station or just send in your mail-in ballot that the Democrats have helpfully sent you. It could drive up turnout, particularly among young people. Oh no, Joe Biden doing good things for working class Americans could drive up turnout. Whatever will we do? I mean, I don't know, Ted Cruz, what if the Republican Party proposed their own student debt cancellation plan that's better than Joe Biden's? Maybe you all could help drive up turnout. Instead, no. They don't want to do anything. They just complain when Democrats take small steps to help people. See, Republicans couldn't care less about your debt. Your student debt, your medical debt, they don't care about you and even if you are suffering, they will do nothing to alleviate your suffering because their goal is to exclusively serve their billionaire donors. But Democrats, they mostly do the same thing. But from time to time, they will throw working people a bone and whenever they do that, knowing that it's popular, Republicans freak out and Republicans, they could just try to, I don't know, appeal to these bong-smoking student debt holders but instead they choose to attack them. Just truly despicable, letting them know how much they hate working class Americans who will benefit from this very popular program. Now, what I'm noticing is that the student debt arguments is becoming somehow even dumber because what we previously heard from people who were opposed to this was just that, well, isn't this a little bit unfair that you're making some plumber who didn't go to college pay for the student debt of some Ivy League graduate? I mean, if you're rich, you're not going to have student debt by definition because you wouldn't take that out unless you need the student loans. But we've heard that argument and now it seems like the liberals who are opposed to this, they've adopted that argument and the Republican argument against student debt just broadly speaking has become overall dumber. So you saw Marco Rubio say, well look, I had student debt when I became a senator and I wrote a book. Oh well, dummy, why didn't I just think of that? Just fucking get a book deal, make sure it's a lucrative book deal and then sell that book to millions of people, it's that easy. You could pay off your student debt like that. Why didn't you think of that, you fucking idiot? I mean, these people are not living in reality and then we had Scott Jennings, that's the Bush administration official, who claimed that Biden went Joker mode over student debt cancellation. Okay, and I just love one representative, Michael Walts, admitted that this is going to hurt military recruitment because how dare you get free college or have your college paid for unless you risk your life and possibly die so we can send you overseas to fight in one of our wars that is very profitable for our defense contractor donors. I mean, this is what they're saying. They think this is compelling to average Americans. It's not and I have the data to reflect that, but I just want to be clear. This isn't just Republicans who are bemoaning Biden cancelling student debt. They have the dumbest arguments for sure, but liberals are also against it as well. Not all liberals, it seems like they're 50-50 split, maybe 60-40. I'm not necessarily sure with the 60% supporting it, but overall, liberal politicians, liberal pundits also don't seem too thrilled about this case in point. Well, it's bad policy as well as bad politics. For that amount of money, you could fund free pre-K for every three- and four-year-old for 10 years. You do a lot more good for poor people, communities of color, and the underprivileged by doing pre-K. You could forgive all medical debt, which, unlike student debt, is not freely entered into. The vast majority of Americans didn't go to college, and they don't have college loans, so they're a little pissed about this. They're like, you know, there are plumbers out there saying, well, why don't you pay off my truck? In 2018, you tweeted, quote, student debt is out of control. If we can bail out the banks who did everything wrong, we can help out the students who did everything right. Isn't that what President Biden's policy is trying to do? Again, I mean, we're not saying that there's not a significant burden here. The cost of college is outrageous, but there's nothing in here to control that cost. And again, I think we can get a significant way down the road by allowing them to renegotiate down the interest rates and put some money into their pocket. And again, there's a lot of other people out here that, you know, are doing everything right as well. So if it's part of a broader package, we could certainly talk about it. That's why I think a tax cut for all working people or medical debt, which isn't directly linked to somebody who goes to college. I mean, I think we've got to have a broader package here, and I would certainly support something like that, but I think the general tax cuts the best way to go. Yeah. So the common theme with liberals who are opposed to this is to not necessarily say dumb things, but just be more disingenuous, pretend as if you're flanking or outflanking Biden from the left, and supporting more things that are good. So don't support student debt cancellation because you could support this other good thing. Okay, first of all, I'm all for it. Why can't we do both? Paul Begala pointed out, you know, for that amount of money, you could fund free pre-K for every three and four-year-old for 10 years. You could forgive all medical debt. Great, let's do that then. You see, except if Biden did do that, he would be against it, guarantee it, because Paul Begala is one of the dumbest people in American politics, and for some reason mainstream media still invites him on because they feel as if he has commentary that is worthwhile or compelling, but in actuality, he's just a talking point machine for whatever industry wants to fuck over Americans the most, and by him saying, oh, well, Biden, you know, we could just forgive medical debt. That is so disingenuous because, first of all, I support medical debt forgiveness, but Paul Begala knows that the president can't really just do that. It's more complicated. The reason why Biden can cancel student debt with the stroke of a pen is because the federal government holds most student debt, but when it comes to medical debt, who holds medical debt? It's private insurance companies. Now, if Paul Begala wants to join me in calling for them to all be abolished, then, you know, that's one way we can tackle it. If those, you know, blood-sucking health insurance companies no longer exist, then the government can take action. There can be a bill to demand the cancellation of all medical debt. Make sure that that's written in law, but he's saying, oh, we'll see how Biden is canceling student debt, but not medical debt. He doesn't think that your medical debt is as important, so what he's trying to do pretty transparently is pit working class people against each other, pit student debt holders against medical debt holders. When medical debt is absolutely egregious as well, then we should get rid of all of these perverted predatory debts that the American people are plagued with, but he wouldn't support that. If Biden proposed, you know, some type of plan or told Congress to get him a single-payer healthcare bill, it'd never happen, but get him a single-payer healthcare bill to his desk, do you want to know who would be against that? Paul Begala, and yet he's pretending to care about medical debt. No, all of these disgusting debts should be canceled. And Ryan, you know, he, just a couple of years ago, supported, you know, student debt alleviation, but now he's against it. And he also, you know, he cited medical debt there, a tax cut for medical debt when it should just be canceled, no tax cuts, no bullshit, just cancel it. But he also once supported Medicare for All, but then when he ran for president in 2020, he came out against it and claimed that even though he cosponsored that legislation, he would have voted against it if, you know, for a vote. So, I don't know what people like Tim Ryan are doing. He is in a contested race against J. D. Vance, who was a psychopath. So as much as I fucking despised him, Ryan, I hate J. D. Vance more, and I think he's extremely dangerous to democracy and will further exacerbate extremism within the GOP. But yet, Tim Ryan, it's like he's trying to lose. He's trying to go against what is the most popular. Now, these liberals claim that it's bad policy, bad politics, Paul Begala especially, well, let's take a look at that actually, because we have some data to back up my argument, not his. As Truth Out writes, Biden's rating hits highest point in months after student debt plan announcement. Now, Sharon Zhang explains, CBS Yuga of polling released on Sunday shows that Biden's job rating among registered voters is now at 45% up from 42% in July. Overall, 20% of respondents said they strongly approve of Biden's performance, while 25% said they somewhat approve. The poll was taken between August 24th and 26th. Biden announced the plan midday on the 24th, meaning that some respondents may have answered the survey before the announcement. This is the highest the president's approval has been since February, according to CBS and Yuga. Most of the gain came from Democrats with the amount of Democrats who say they strongly approve of Biden's job performance increasing by 8 points since July. He's also seen gains among young people, among whom his approval is now in the positives. So just pause for a moment. Biden has been struggling to win over young people. We've seen all the headlines about how he's sinking with regard to young people. And now that he finally does something to deliver for mostly young people, well, he's seeing his approval rating increase. Now, it's correlated with student debt cancellation, but we don't necessarily know if it's caused by student debt cancellation, but it's logical to assume that that is indeed the case. But now all of these same outlets who wrote about how Biden is struggling with young voters are posting columns about how bad his student debt cancellation plan is. The entire Washington Post editorial board came out against this plan. So they're all against it. But yet polls show it's very popular. No, Emerson College released a poll showing that, yeah, it's pretty fucking popular. Only 21% of 18 to 34-year-olds think that his plan was too giving, indicating that they don't support it, compared to the 79% of 18 to 34-year-olds who either say it didn't go far enough or was just right, indicating that they are supportive of student debt cancellation. Now, between 35 and 49-year-olds, only 27% say that it's too much, 37% want him to go even further, 35% say that it's just right. 50 to 64-year-olds, a plurality, say that it's too much, but still nearly a quarter of boomers at 23% say that it doesn't go far enough, and 37% support Biden's action. Now, finally and unsurprisingly, people 65 and older do not support this. A majority are against it, but yet still 48% show some level of support for debt cancellation, with 16% saying that it doesn't go far enough. So this policy is broadly popular and it has support among the entire voting demographic. So for these people, like Paul Bogala, who claim that it's bad politics, they're just lying at this point. They're just lying. And look, these polls are just recent, but polls have consistently shown majority support for student debt cancellation, even a lot of support among Republicans and especially younger Republicans. So Ted Cruz, as dumb as he is, is the only one who is being honest. Yeah, this could actually motivate people to come out to the polls, but liberals are disingenuous to claiming, actually, people are going to be really mad about this. No, actually, I cannot stand Joe Biden. I supported Bernie Sanders in 2020, but I support this move. And even if he didn't go far enough, him canceling $20,000 worth of my student debt, that makes me want to support him even more, at least temporarily, just because these GOP fuckheads and some liberals are coming out against him. And that's what they're going to do. Him doing something popular and then getting attacked for it is going to cause people to rally around him because they want to defend this action so that way the message that he gets is, oh, okay, this is actually good. Maybe the mainstream media isn't representative of the general public. So I tortured you, right, with the Republicans, with the liberals who are against this, but now we're going to have a little bit of a palette cleanser. I want to share with Bernie Sanders and Nina Turner, I had to say, especially Nina Turner, because she basically addressed all of the talking points that we've seen and with both of them. What they have to say is incredibly valuable and most importantly, they're correct. I know it is shocking, George, the some Republicans, that the government actually, on occasion, does something to benefit working families and low-income people. I don't hear any of these Republicans squawking when we give massive tax breaks to billionaires when we have an effective tax rate today, such at the 1% a lower effective tax rate than working people. We have major corporations and they're giving you don't pay a nickel in federal taxes. That's okay. But suddenly, when we do something for working people, it is a terrible idea. I was in Boston last week and I was talking to nurses and these nurses were telling me that they are working, in some cases, two jobs, outrageous hours, partly in order to pay for the student debts that they have accumulated. So in my view, the president did the right thing and we have got to be really thinking about higher education in general. And in my view, at a time when hundreds of thousands of bright young people can't even afford to go to college, if we're going to be competitive in a global economy, we need to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. And listen, the $10,000 worth of forgiveness that President Biden just recently announced, it's a great start, but it is not the end, it's the floor, it's not the ceiling. And even as we know, the stats that you just displayed, the average debt for African-Americans, particularly African-American women, $52,000, the average white student between $8,000 and $12,000, that $10,000 hardly meets the need. So it is structural in nature and it needs to be changed. So this is a small step, but it is a step nonetheless. How far will this new program help, do you think? So, it means tested, that means that you're leaving a whole bunch of people out and it should be canceling student debt for all so that nobody is left out, so that no one feels as though they did not get the relief that they deserve. It is hurting working class and working poor. And we know many students who start college don't even finish. So when you have people like the GOP using the working class, most people go to college, a lot of their children go to college. Why? Because they're trying to obtain the American dream and that is being doused because this debt is so you just can't keep up. You know, I've heard stories of people paying on this debt over and over and over again and they can't catch up because the interest rates, people owe more, a lot of people owe more because of the interest rates but the structure in this country needs to be changed and it can be changed. Let me just jump in because you talked about the Republicans' response to this. I mean, there are plenty of folks out there not just Republicans who say, listen, I paid off my student loans. Why should these guys get a freebie and perhaps cynically just before midterms? I mean, we heard Mitch McConnell call this a slap in the face to every family who sacrificed to save for college every graduate who paid their debt that you sort of talked about. The people who actually didn't go to college there, they're now paying with their taxes for student loans, they never got. So what do you say to that? Taxes are not going up over this. So it is a straight up lie for the Republicans to be out there talking about tax dollars are going up. That's number one, that somebody's taxes are going up. Number two, this us versus them is the problem. In the United States of America we pay for K through 12 education. So for example, my son is no longer in high school. But guess what? My property taxes still go to pay for the education of somebody else's child. Why? Because it is indeed a public good. So we need a total paradigm shift in this country to go from pre-K to college as a public good as a social right. And then lastly, for Senator Mitch McConnell, I didn't hear all of this bravado when it came to the PPP loans being relieved. I didn't hear all of this bravado when it came to the Trump tax cuts that went overwhelmingly to the wealthiest people of this country to the tune of 1.9 trillion dollars. We have an opportunity in this country to give relief to 45 million people and their family and their closest friends. Why wouldn't we make that kind of investment? So that divide and conquer tactic that the GOP is using. I'm hoping that the American people will not buy into it because it's not us versus them. We are them and it is all of us. As Nina Turner pointed out, we need a paradigm shift, right? Even though maybe we don't have kids that go to school, our property taxes still benefit public education. Even if, you know, I am not going to drive on every single road in the state of Oregon, I'm fine with my tax dollars going towards roads. We live in a society where this is just part of the social contract. We pull our resources to build a better country and the paradigm shift is needed so that we don't think about education as just being K through 12. We think about education as being K through college because that's what's needed since a majority of employers require a college degree in this day and time. So to, you know, attack people and further punish them for trying to better themselves is incredibly disgusting. So shame on all of the Republicans, shame on all of the liberals against this, people like Bernie Sanders and Nina Turner are 100% correct. This is not just good policy, it's good politics as well.