Fox’s Bret Baier defends those who support PPP loan forgiveness but disagree with student debt relief

Baier: “Student loans seem like a different animal. Is that fair?”

Video file

Citation

From the August 25, 2022, edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier

BRET BAIER (HOST): A lot of the pushback I heard from Democrats today had to do with the hypocrisy, a version of what-aboutism, dealing with the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program during COVID that gave a lot of people, including Republican lawmakers who were business owners checks, paychecks. And they are saying if you didn't have a problem with that, why do you have a problem with this?

A couple of things. One, school loans are a choice. And, two, Congress passed the PPP, the Senate and the House did. And, three, the PPP was a result of government action that shut America down, that essentially said everything is stopping. Student loans seem like a different animal. Is that fair?

LESLIE MARSHALL: Somewhat. I would agree with your last point. But the first point about choice, PPP is a choice, and we also know that not all PPP was truly forgiven. And you had a choice to pay it back. I think Joel Osteen is doing that right now after pushback from the community, even Christians inside and outside of that community.

Look, at the end of the day, here's the hypocrisy from where I sit, Bret. The American people voted for Joe Biden. He said it, he tweeted it, this specific amount. Two, polls show the American people are in favor of this. Three, the American people pay for fish on a treadmill. People pay for our military who are pacifists. People pay within states for public schools who don't have children who go there, and people pay for interstate freeways even if they don't drive or never leave their state. I could go on, and on, and on, and I won't because of time. So, there are a lot of things that our tax dollars pay for that we don't necessarily like or we don't necessarily partake of. And when people you talk about "politicizing," that's I think who is politicizing, the right. And then Americans who forgot this is one of the things you elected the president to do. And in the polls you said you wanted this and this specific dollar amount.