 White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain appeared on an episode of the Pod Save America podcast and he was asked about student debt Now what he said here was very interesting and Uncharacteristically reasonable for the Biden administration. Take a look. The president's going to look at what we should do on student debt before The pause expires or he'll extend the pause Joe Biden right now is the only president in history Where no one's paid on their student loans for the entirety of his presidency? And so the question whether or not there's some executive action student debt forgiveness When the payments res resume is a decision we're going to take before the payments resume right now people aren't having to pay on their loans and And so I think dealing with the executive branch question what we should do about that What his powers are how much we should do on that? That's something we're going to deal with later on That sounded very interesting now before we say anything further Temporary expectations because there's a couple of red flags with what he's saying there that lead me to believe that this isn't going to be The full student debt cancellation that we've all been demanding for years now But let's go through what he said here. So he says Possibly before the pause expires. They're looking at extending the pause at a minimum I do think that it's reasonable to deduce that we will see another extension of the Pause on student debt repayment, which that's that's good news, right? So some cause for hopeium, but what I really want to know is What's the verdict when it comes to student debt cancellation? None of us are really expecting this from Joe Biden Even if we are demanding it, but it's nice to kind of get a little bit of an update Well, Ron Klain says so the question of whether or not there's some executive action on student debt forgiveness when the repayments When the payments resume is a decision We're going to take before the payments resume And so I think dealing with the executive branch question what we should do about that What his powers are and how much we should do on that. There's something we're gonna deal with later on So what he just gave us was a timeline Before May 1st, which is the date that payments are currently set to resume for student loans They will determine whether or not Biden will take executive action and how much So There's a couple of things working in our favor ultimately I I'll tell you what my expectations are. They're not very high just to kind of be clear But we have a couple of things working in our favor first and foremost You just saw the White House chief of staff brag about how Biden is the only president in history Where nobody has had to make payments on their student loans That's something that they are saying because they know that that's good and popular Therefore they want to give themselves a little bit of ammunition Something to brag about going into the midterms and they presumably want to keep this up, right? So they know at least at the very very minimum That allowing people to have a little bit more room to breathe having this break from student loans is popular So that's important So if it is the case that Biden chooses to sign an executive order Canceling student debt as his chief of staff Ronald Klain hinted that he might possibly do the question is how much? What's the number? I would expect no more than ten thousand dollars. Do not get your hopes up if he cancels fifty thousand That would be very very unlikely But I mean this is what the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer along with a lot of lawmakers are calling in on him to do But on the campaign trail, he said very explicitly. He's not gonna cancel that much. He said ten thousand dollars now He said more vague things about student forgiveness on the campaign trail So you can take from that what you want, but this is Joe Biden So if he's going to cancel anything via executive order Well, I wouldn't expect more than ten thousand I certainly wouldn't expect full cancellation if he proves me wrong I would be more than happy to say that I was wrong and he was right here good on him But I just think that that's unlikely a couple of things that are working against us here And this is very cynical But his approval rating is starting to rebound following the state of the union and following his Approval of the way that he's handling the Russian invasion into Ukraine So with that in mind He may not necessarily feel the pressure to do something with respect to student loan repayments because if his approval ratings going up Then you know why bother? It's a Democrat. So of course, we should always expect less than the bare minimum, but on top of that This administration I mean we need to remind you who they are as insider reminds all of us Biden's Department of Education continues to fight student loan borrowers who are fighting to discharge their student loans in court via bankruptcy for example After a 35 year old Ryan Wolfson successfully proved in court his student loans proved an undue hardship Well the Department of Education stepped in to appeal the case now They subsequently withdrew their appeal following backlash once the story became public But still it kind of gives you a sense of what they're trying to do where their priorities lie They also rejected a 77 year old nurse's attempt to discharge her student debt After she served nearly two decades at a public hospital now Let me remind you that if you've dedicated your life to public service for two decades Your student debt is supposed to be forgiven public service is one avenue to loan forgiveness This is what the Democrats have bragged about but when it comes to what they're doing in court Or when people make these appeals to have their student debt discharged, they're fighting them So this is who the administration is we hear that from ronald clain And it's it's easy to get your hopes up and feel a little bit of hopeium But let's temper our expectations and remember who we're we're dealing with here We're dealing with joe biden the buck stops with him So his chief of staff can say one thing But this is the guy ultimately who made it more difficult for all of us to discharge our student debt in the first place Thanks to his bankruptcy bill. So I would not expect him to do Anything even when it comes to ten thousand dollars. I'm not getting my hopes up with that. Would it be lovely? Yes Would I absolutely sing his praises if he chose to sign an executive order canceling all student debt without question Is he gonna do that though? Not necessarily But here's one thing that we do have going in our favor or working in our favor I should say going into the future the negative economic impact argument is now officially moot Because nobody has made payments on their student loans for quite some time and guess what? There's no evidence that it has negatively impacted the economy So this fear mongering that we heard previously about how canceling student debt would lead to some sort of an economic crisis Is bullshit I mean the evidence is right in front of us, right? So that's one really important thing that we have in the future And I also just want you all to Save that video that we just watched of Ron claim so that way we can throw it in Biden's face in the future Or in the democratic party's face in the future Because they've kind of been dangling student debt forgiveness or some sort of forgiveness Or just easing up our pain in front of our faces for a while now So this is all building up to something right some sort of a solution So if they don't do anything about this then we can throw this in their face and say well You all keep hinting at this and you keep telling us to vote for you and yet nothing is being accomplished Now they might just say Well, look you haven't made payments under us. So that's your relief You're welcome Or they might actually take it a step further and cancel at least some student debt I don't know but what we just just saw right there was significant that is the white house chief of staff explicitly publicly saying that we're looking at a potential executive order To cancel student debt Not saying how much not saying if we're even going to do it We may just extend the pause on repayments But still that's significant and it's something that you all need to keep in mind So when the democrats start to waiver again throw it in their faces I mean, whatever we can do to put pressure on him, but I will say I've been pretty optimistic just because there's been such a sustained amount of pressure on joe biden from other lawmakers Progressives and even senators like chuck shear. I mean, he's the last person that you'd expect to have any Progressive bone in his body whatsoever But he's been relatively consistent here And I previously thought that maybe he was trying to thwart off some sort of a primary challenge from a progressive opponent But he's pretty consistent. So credit where it's due he's exerting pressure And even if you know, he doesn't really mean it and this is all just rhetoric that still is important It still moves the orton window in our direction. So, you know, it's a positive development here to hear a white house chief of staff ron claim say that but don't get your hopes up because You're likely going to be disappointed if you do but still something to keep in mind because that's not a small thing To see that to hear him say yeah, we're looking at executive action. That's pretty substantial. So Take from it what you will but I'm not going to get my hopes up for one