The New York Times reports that Putin's decision to suspend participation in the treaty shows his sharpest break yet with Western nations since the end of the Cold War.
Biden's visit to Ukraine was seen as a major black eye to Putin, who for the last year has been waging a grinding war in the neighboring country that has so far failed to secure his stated military objectives.
The Medicare wars are back, and almost no one in Washington is surprised.
This time it’s Democrats accusing Republicans of wanting to maim the very popular federal health program that covers 64 million seniors and people with disabilities. In the past, Republicans have successfully pinned Democrats as the threat to Medicare.
Why do politicians persistently wield Medicare, as well as Social Security, as weapons? Because history shows that works at the ballot box. Generally, the party accused of menacing the sacrosanct entitlements pays a price — although it’s the millions of beneficiaries relying on feuding lawmakers to keep the programs funded who stand to lose the most.
Republicans have repeatedly warned they would hold raising the federal debt ceiling hostage unless Democrats negotiated changes to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The three programs together, along with funding for the Affordable Care Act and Children’s Health Insurance Program, account for nearly half of the federal budget.
The political bomb that went off during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech on Feb. 7 had been ticking for weeks. In his speech, Biden threatened to veto any Republican efforts to cut Social Security or Medicare. It was one of only three veto threats he made that night. During a trip to Florida after the speech, he said it more forcefully: “I know a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare. Well, let me say this: If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare.”
Senior Republicans have distanced themselves from the proposals Biden was referencing, notably ideas from the House Republican Study Committee and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to make cuts or even let Medicare expire unless Congress votes to keep it going.
“That’s not the Republican plan; that’s the Rick Scott plan,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on a Kentucky radio show Feb. 9, echoing his opposition to the plan last year.
“Cuts to Social Security and Medicare are off the table,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared the day before Biden’s veto threat.
McConnell and McCarthy know something that Rick Scott apparently does not: Politicians threaten big, popular entitlement programs at their peril. And, usually, it’s been Republicans who suffer the electoral consequences.
This dates at least to 1982, when Democrats used threats of Republican cuts to Social Security to pick up more than two dozen House seats in President Ronald Reagan’s first midterm elections. In 1996, President Bill Clinton won reelection in part by convincing voters that Republicans led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich wanted to privatize Medicare and Social Security.
At the beginning of his second term, in 2005, President George W. Bush made it his top priority to “partially privatize” Social Security. That proved singularly unpopular. In the following midterm elections, Democrats won back the House for the first time since losing it in 1994.
The use of the Medicare cudgel likely reached its zenith in 2012, when Democrats took aim at Medicare privatization proposals offered by Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chair and Republican vice presidential candidate. That debate produced the infamous “pushing Granny off the cliff” ad.
The reality is that Medicare’s value as a political weapon also sabotages any effort to come together to solve the program’s financing problems. The last two times the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund was this close to insolvency — in the early 1980s and late 1990s — Congress passed bipartisan bills to keep the program afloat.
Even the word “cut” can be political. One stakeholder’s Medicare “cut” is another’s benefit. Reducing payments to medical providers (or, more often, reducing the size of payment increases to doctors and hospitals) may reduce premiums for beneficiaries, whose payments are based on total program costs. Raising premiums or cost sharing for beneficiaries is a benefit to taxpayers, who help fund Medicare. Increasing available benefits helps providers and beneficiaries, but costs more for taxpayers. And on, and on.
There are fundamental differences between the parties that can’t be papered over. Many Republicans want Medicare to shift from a “defined benefit” program — in which beneficiaries are guaranteed a certain set of services and the government pays whatever they cost — to a “defined contribution” program, in which beneficiaries would get a certain amount of money to finance as much as they can — and would be on the hook for the rest of their medical expenses.
This would shift the risk of health inflation from the government to the beneficiary. And while it clearly would benefit the taxpayer, it would disadvantage both providers and beneficiaries of the program.
But there are many, many intermediate steps Congress could take to at least delay insolvency for both Medicare and Social Security. Some are more controversial than others (raising the payroll tax that funds Medicare, for example), but none are beyond the steps previous Congresses have taken every time the programs have neared insolvency.
Republicans are correct about this: Medicare and Social Security can’t be “fixed” until both sides lay down their weapons and start talking. But every time a granny in a wheelchair gets pushed off a cliff, that truce seems less and less possible.
HealthBent, a regular feature of Kaiser Health News, offers insight and analysis of policies and politics from KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, Julie Rovner, who has covered health care for more than 30 years.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
Even though Biden's visit was seen as a major diplomatic victory for Ukraine, which for the past year has been trying to drive invading Russian forces out of its territory, Trump warned that Biden's decision to fund Ukraine's defense would lead to Armageddon.
"If you watch and understand the moves being made by Biden on Ukraine, he is systematically, but perhaps unknowingly, pushing us into what could soon be WORLD WAR III," Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. "How crazy is that?"
According to Rolling Stone, Trump also claimed on Monday that his strong personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin would have prevented the Russian president from ever launching his invasion of Ukraine, which so far has failed to achieve any of Putin's stated aims despite having dragged on for more than a year.
"I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, 'This is genius,'" Trump said. "Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine -- Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful."
President Joe Biden is pushing an agenda to stop corporations from charging so-called "junk fees" that hide the true cost they're charging from the sticker price of their goods and services. And Republicans, according to The Daily Beast, have decided to try to stop him.
"In his State of the Union speech earlier this month, President Joe Biden outlined a number of policies to help working-class Americans, including a ban on predatory junk fees. Alongside calls to ban noncompete clauses and rein in Big Tech, Biden’s address marks a rare instance of a president using their platform to take on corporate abuses," wrote Aidan Smith. "From a political standpoint, it’s hard to imagine that the issue won’t be a winner with the American public. After all, regardless of whether you’re a liberal or a conservative, you’re probably not too happy when a hotel puts a previously unannounced 'resort fee' on your bill after you’ve already checked out. As explained by the White House, junk fees exist purely to 'confuse or deceive consumers,' or to take advantage of 'situational market power.'"
The administration views these sorts of fees as an illegal, anti-competitive practice because hiding the true cost of a product from consumers "distorts the market" and prevents people from being able to comparison shop. These sorts of fees tend to be worst in heavily consolidated industries. Most famously, Ticketmaster has come under increased scrutiny from both performers and government regulators for outrageously high fees.
Republicans, however, have decided to team up with business lobbyists to try to kill the efforts of Biden's agencies to go after these fees.
For example, noted Smith, last year Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee attacked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a letter for trying to rein in bank fees. "In the letter, the GOP senators accused the agency of mounting a 'relentless smear campaign against banks' over purportedly 'optional overdraft services,'" said the report. "Amusingly, Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee also feigned outrage last year about the CFPB’s effort, describing the agency’s actions as an 'attack' on the 'services Americans rely on.'"
"At a time when millions of Americans face food and housing insecurity, hidden or deceptive fees that exist purely to gouge consumers means junk fees are harming the most vulnerable. As Biden explained, 'Junk fees might not matter to wealthy people, but they matter to most folks like the home I grew up in,'" concluded Smith. "Putting the ethical issues aside, with the 2024 presidential campaign cycle set to kick into gear, Republicans would be unwise to tie themselves to the cause of defending junk fees."
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio, accused his fellow Republicans of politicizing the border for their own benefit, further escalating his standoff with more conservative members of his party who he said stood to gain from a sustained migration conflict.
“Anyone who thinks a 3 page anti-immigration bill with 0% chance of getting signed into law is going to solve the border crisis should be buying beach front property in AZ,” Gonzales tweeted Thursday night in an apparent reference to border legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin.
Roy and Gonzales have been going head-to-head on border security for weeks. In January, Roy introduced legislation, dubbed the Border Safety and Security Act, to give the secretary of Homeland Security the ability to shut down border crossings and detain asylum-seekers while their cases are processed in court. Gonzales was one of the most vocal Republican opponents to that plan, saying it would in essence create a mechanism to end asylum — a characterization Roy denies.
The bill was slated to get a floor vote early this Congress but was instead sent to the House Homeland Security Committee for further debate after it became clear there would not be enough votes for it to pass the House. Gonzales sits on the committee.
The bill faces little chance of passage with a Democratic-controlled Senate and President Joe Biden’s veto power. Many Republicans in the Senate are striking a more moderate tone on border issues relative to the House, hoping to pass a bipartisan package due to the political realities of working in the minority.
“There’s a reason why we haven’t gotten significant border security done and why we haven’t seen significant immigration reform done,” Gonzales said in an interview with the Washington Examiner published Thursday, referring to members on both sides of the aisle. “It is in the interest of many politicians to have this crisis continue to flare up.”
“Others can posture, and others can drop bills that are messaging and blame the other side,” Gonzales added. “I don’t have that luxury.”
In a statement to The Texas Tribune, Roy responded that the way to depoliticize the border is to “end the crisis.”
“You end it by stopping the releases that are contrary to existing law and are fueling the flood at the border — endangering Americans and migrants while also hampering the legitimate asylum claims,” the statement said.
Republicans have made the southern border one of their principal attack points against the Biden administration, accusing the president and his top aides of neglecting the issue amid record apprehensions. Texas Republicans in the U.S. House took a lead in outlining a strict border security plan late last year that has since become the conference’s main strategy for curbing migrant crossings.
Gonzales is a close ally of a bipartisan group of senators urging the House to get a package coupling border security legislation with immigration reform. U.S. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Arizona, and Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, created an outline to do so late last year, consulting with border members including Gonzales and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, helped Sinema lead the Senate group to the Texas and Arizona borders last month.
Democrats took solace in Gonzales’ opposition to Roy’s legislation. During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, ranking member Jerry Nadler, D-New York, quoted Gonzales in calling legislation to ban asylum “not Christian” and “anti-American.”
Gonzales and Cuellar have also worked together in the past on legislation to combat suicide among U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and to build more migrant processing capacity at the border. They presented a centrist State of the Union response this year after Biden’s annual address.
The two South Texans were also close on the campaign trail, appearing together on media hits — a dynamic that irked many Republicans eager to flip the longstanding Democratic district. Roy stumped for Cuellar’s challenger, Cassy Garcia, traveling to the district for an October rally last year.
Roy has defended his bill as enforcing asylum law but ending policy allowing asylum-seekers to wait for months or years in the country while their cases are heard.
“It absolutely allows for asylum claims, but it puts the responsibility on the Homeland Security secretary to do his job,” Roy said in an interview with the Tribune last month. “You can’t come here and claim asylum when you don’t have an actual asylum claim.”
“Tony ought to read the bill and read current law,” Roy told “PBS NewsHour” earlier this month.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
President Joe Biden‘s covert trip to Ukraine, months in the making yet kept totally out of the press until he entered Kyiv Monday morning, has generated glowing headlines across the nation and around the world, and it’s making Donald Trump’s MAGA defenders, like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, go ballistic.
“Biden took a *10-hour* train ride from Poland to Kyiv as US fighter jets circled the Poland/Ukraine border,” MSNBC’s Ali Velshi tweeted Monday evening, “making him the 1st sitting president to enter a war zone with no active US military presence.”
“Today’s visit by Biden to Ukraine will surely become an indelible highlight of his presidency,” tweeted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst David Rothkopf, “not because of its drama but because it reminds of the unhesitating, unshakable commitment Biden has demonstrated to Ukraine, to our security and to democracy.”
The headlines are impressive.
“Biden Just Destroyed Putin’s Last Hope” (The Atlantic)
“Biden’s Ukraine visit upstages Putin and leaves Moscow’s military pundits raging” (CNN)
“Biden’s Kyiv Visit Lifts Spirits of War-Weary Ukrainians” (NYT)
But MAGA extremists like Congresswoman Greene spent the day pretending that it was offensive that President Biden went to Ukraine on Presidents’ Day.
“This is incredibly insulting,” Greene tweeted Monday morning, posting a new article about the Ukraine trip. “Today on our President’s Day, Joe Biden, the President of the United States chose Ukraine over America, while forcing the American people to pay for Ukraine’s government and war.”
She ended that tweet with, “I can not express how much Americans hate Joe Biden,” which is provably false.
Greene posted 12 tweets on Monday on her official government Twitter account.
In another tweet Greene called it “insulting” that “Zelenskyy can’t even wear a tie as he greets the President of the United States.”
And she called for President Biden to be impeached because he went to Ukraine instead of East Palestine, Ohio.
One of her many tweets on Monday was telling: “The U.S. support for war in Ukraine has been like a U.S. proxy war with Russia,” she cried. “But now it’s becoming more like a U.S.- China war through the Ukraine – Russia war. End it now!”
And earlier in the day Greene called for secession.
“We need a national divorce,” Greene wrote on her personal Twitter account. “We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
She followed up with this on her official government Twitter account: “People are absolutely fed up and disgusted with left wing insanity and disaster America Last policies. National divorce is not civil war, but Biden and the neocons are leading us into WW3, while forcing corporate ESG and gender confusion on our kids. Enough!”
Political strategist Simon Rosenberg offered this observation of Congresswoman Greene: “On the day of Biden’s historic visit to Kiev, one of greater MAGA’s most flamboyant useful idiots, MTG, calls for an American Brexit, a dissolution of the United States. Remarkable how often MAGA finds itself parroting Kremlin talking points, and on this day, President’s Day.”
President Joe Biden's surprise visit Monday morning to wartime Kyiv began in the dead of night at a military airport hangar outside Washington.
At 4:00 am (0900 GMT) Sunday -- unbeknown to the world's media, the Washington political establishment or American voters -- the 80-year-old Democrat boarded an Air Force Boeing 757, known as a C-32.
The plane, a smaller version of the one US presidents normally use on international trips, was parked well away from where Biden would usually board. And a telling detail: the shade on every window had been pulled down.
Fifteen minutes later, Biden, a handful of security personnel, a small medical team, close advisors, and two journalists who had been sworn to secrecy, took off en route to a war zone.
The US president is perhaps the most constantly scrutinized person on the planet.
Members of the press follow Biden wherever he goes -- whether to church or international summits. Every word he says in public is recorded, transcribed and published.
In this case, though, the usual pool of reporters, which for foreign trips would compromise 13 journalists from radio, TV, photo and written press organizations, was cut to one photographer and one writer.
The reporter, Sabrina Siddiqui from The Wall Street Journal, revealed -- once allowed by the White House to publish details -- that she and the photographer were summoned to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington at 2:15 am.
Their phones were confiscated -- not to be returned until Biden finally arrived in the Ukrainian capital about 24 hours later.
They flew for about seven hours from Washington to the US military base in Ramstein, Germany, for refueling. Here too, the window shades stayed down and they did not leave the plane.
The next flight was to Poland, landing in Rzeszow–Jasionka Airport. This may be a Polish airport, but since the Ukraine war it has also become an international hub for the US-led effort to arm the Ukrainians, funneling billions of dollars of weaponry and ammunition.
'Good to be back'
Up to this point, Siddiqui and the photographer, the Associated Press' Evan Vucci, had not seen Biden himself. That didn't change at the airport or when they got into a motorcade of SUVs.
Reporters traveling with Biden often go in motorcades, but something was very different about this one: no sirens or anything else to announce that the US president was headed to Przemysl Glowny -- the Polish train station near the Ukrainian border.
It was already 9:15 pm local time as they pulled up at a train. The journalists were told to board, still without laying eyes on Biden.
Running a route that has brought untold quantities of aid into Ukraine and untold numbers of Ukrainian civilians fleeing the other way, the train had about eight cars. Most of the people aboard, Siddiqui said, were "heavy security."
Biden is an avowed train buff.
He loves recounting his years of commuting by rail between Washington and home in Delaware when he was a senator, bringing up two young sons after their mother died in a car accident. One of his nicknames is "Amtrak Joe."
This 10-hour trip into Ukraine, though, was unlike any taken by a modern US president -- journeying into an active war zone where, unlike presidential visits to Afghanistan or Iraq, US troops are not the ones providing security.
The train rolled into Kyiv with the rising sun.
Biden, who had last visited the Ukrainian capital when he was vice president under Barack Obama disembarked at about 8:07 am.
Political comedian Bill Maher of "Real Time" on HBO, has been warning that U.S. democracy is in a state of crisis thanks to the MAGA movement and far-right Republicans who refuse to accept democratic election results they don't like. As Maher sees it, the type of authoritarian mindset one sees in figures like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan can also be found in MAGA Republicans who refuse to accept Joe Biden as a legitimately elected president.
Maher has been arguing that the U.S. dodged a major bullet when Republican Kari Lake (who lost to Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs) and many other like-minded election denialists were defeated in the 2022 midterms. But he also believes that U.S. democracy is far from out of the woods. During a commentary aired on Friday, February 17, Maher pointed to incivility during presidential State of the Union addresses as symptomatic of the threats that democracy is facing in the U.S.
"When someday soon, an actual brawl breaks out on the floor of Congress, don't say I didn't tell you it was coming," Maher told viewers. "And, oh yes, it's coming."
The "Real Time" host went on to show clips of actual fistfights during parliamentary sessions in other countries, followed by clips of booing and heckling during State of the Union addresses by U.S. presidents — including the heckling that President Joe Biden experienced from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and other MAGA Republicans during his recent SOTU speech. Maher said of Greene, "Honey, sit down. This is Congress, not the Waffle House at 3 in the morning."
Maher added, "As far as democracy goes, this stuff is the canary in the coal mine…. Here's who doesn't have parliament fights: countries with authoritarian rulers, because they just wouldn't allow it…. And the other kind of country that doesn't throw punches: real democracies like we used to be."
Maher stressed that when lawmakers are literally punching one another in the face, that is not a full-fledged dictatorship — not yet anyway — but is definitely a democracy in crisis.
"The places where fights break out are the places that aren't sure which one they are," Maher warned. "And that's where we're headed."
New Rule: Parliament Fights | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)
www.youtube.com
On Monday United Airlines announced a new process for family seating in order to make it more convenient for parents to sit next to their children
In his address to Congress Biden said, "We will prohibit airlines from charging $50 round trip for a family just to be able to sit together," Bident continued. "Baggage fees are bad enough. Airlines can't treat your child like a piece of baggage."
The changes will take place in a couple weeks in early March, allowing travelers with children under the age of 12 to have more options to book seats right next to them. If adjacent seats are unavailable, the families can rebook their flight at no charge, according to United Airlines.
United Airlines' chief customer officer also said the airlines plans on introducing additional family-friendly enhancements and options throughout 2023.
The Department of Transportation has publicly stated beginning in 2022 that it is working on establishing protocols to ban airlines from charging additional fees for parents who want to sit next to their younger children. The change is part of the Biden administration's elimination of consumer 'junk fees.'
Additional 'junk fees' under scrutiny include concert and event tickets as well as fees related to late credit card payments.
Republicans Monday trashed President Joe Biden’s trip to Ukraine, claiming the visit to support Kyiv is an “insult” to Americans. Dumping the tradition of politics ending at the water’s edge, right-wing lawmakers said Biden was wasting American taxpayers’ money defending Ukraine against the Russian invasion. “The President of the United States chose Ukraine over America, while forcing the American people to pay for Ukraine’s government and war,” tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. “I can not express how much Americans hate Joe Biden.” Greene also accused Ukraine Preisdent Volodymyr Zele...
In an interview with CBS News' "Face the Nation" this weekend, Sanders said the idea is just another way to express hate.
"We are fighting racism, we are fighting sexism, we are fighting homophobia," Sanders said. "I think we should also be fighting ageism."
Sanders said that competency is not linked to an age limit or age range, stating in the same interview, "There are a lot of 40-year olds out there who aren't particularly competent."
Haley, 51, is exactly 30 years younger than Sanders, 81.
“Exactly what a career politician and socialist would say,” Haley told The Epoch Times on Monday. “This is about transparency. The Washington establishment is afraid of the people finding out some of our leaders aren’t fit to serve.”
Sanders warned about making judgments based on an individual's competency based on their age and that it could lead to other tests to qualify presidential candidates.
"America is not past our prime," Haley said during her announcement to run for the GOP nomination on Feb. 15. "It's just that our politicians are past theirs."
The statement received a loud round of applause from the crowd in Charleston, South Carolina.
Both current President Joe Biden, 80, and former President Donald Trump, 76, are older than Haley's suggested competency test.
NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams and the union that represents New York City’s hotel workers are bringing their pitch to host the Democratic National Convention to Washington, D.C., this week in a television ad that’s set to start airing Tuesday. The ad, which is slated to run on CNN and MSNBC in the D.C. metro area, features Adams and members of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council touting the Big Apple’s diversity and labor-friendly bona fides and is intended to get the attention of President Joe Biden and members of the Democratic National Committee, who will ultimately decide where the 2024 conv...
Supporters of U.S. President Joe Biden's stalled student debt relief proposal are planning to rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. at the end of the month as justices hear a case challenging the administration's long-awaited program.
After Biden in August announced his plan to cancel up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 for borrowers with incomes under $125,000 for individuals or $250,000 for households, right-wing politicians and activists took to the courts. The administration has stopped taking applications while awaiting the high court's decision but also extended a pause on loan repayments until June.
Given that the right-wing court's ruling is expected to "determine the fate of this program and the economic freedom of millions," organizers of the People's Rally for Student Debt Cancellation intend to "bring the voices and stories of impacted borrowers directly to the steps of the court" on February 28 from 8:00 am to noon ET.
"I wanted to make sure that the justices look into the eyes of borrowers while they're doing the hearing."
"More than 26 million borrowers remain in limbo, including 16 million who have been officially approved for relief" through BIden's "life-changing" program, because of "blatantly partisan lawsuits were filed by the president's political opponents to block the desperately needed relief," organizers highlight on a webpage for the rally, set to be livestreamed.
"For too long the student debt crisis has exacerbated racial and economic inequality," organizers argue on the Campaign to Cancel My Student Debt website, managed by the Student Borrower Protection Center. "Working people are looking to SCOTUS to follow the letter of the law and uphold critical relief for millions of student loan borrowers."
Rise, a youth-led nonprofit that aims to make higher education free, plans to bring around 100 college students from the swing states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to the D.C. rally, co-founder Max Lubin toldInsider.
"I think that when people see who is impacted, if they themselves are not, they start to understand that this is about fairness and this is about opportunity, and not ruining someone's life with decades of unpayable debt just because you're trying to earn an education," he said.
"In these kinds of D.C. fights, oftentimes real impacted Americans, real people are not considered and not present, and they are ignored by either elected, or in this case, appointed decision-makers," Lubin continued. "So we're showing up in full force."
Melissa Byrne, executive director of We the 45 Million, a campaign that fights for student debt cancellation, told Insider that in addition to the rally the day of the oral arguments, there will be an event at 6:00 pm ET the night before the hearing.
"We're going to have fun with it in the evening," Byrne explained. "With a brass band, mariachi, acapella, people telling their stories, pizza, and just to really show and demonstrate that borrowers are just like your neighbors, and that this relief is helping out your communities around the country."
"I wanted to make sure that the justices look into the eyes of borrowers while they're doing the hearing," she added. "Our actions will show that the people with debt are just regular people from around the country."
Supporters of debt cancellation continue to call out those who have stood in the way of the president's proposal—which was more modest than many borrowers and other Democratic politicians had advocated.
"Whether purchasing their first home, starting a business, or growing their family, millions of borrowers will benefit from student debt cancellation," Rep. Ayanna Pressley(D-Mass.) said Sunday, adding that Biden "has the legal authority" and "Republicans must stop obstructing this relief."
Former Democratic congressional candidate Nina Turner—now a senior fellow at the New School's Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy—similarly stressed Sunday that the president "has legal authority to cancel student debt and conservative judges are holding it up."
"Over 40 million borrowers would qualify for this administration's one-time student debt relief," the White House tweeted Monday. "In every single congressional district, at least half of eligible borrowers either applied or were deemed auto-eligible for relief—in the one month the application was available."
"Millions of these borrowers—and more—could be experiencing relief right now," the White House added, "if it were not for lawsuits brought by opponents of the student debt relief program."
