CNN contributor says Biden has entered the “Joker phase” of his presidency with student debt forgiveness
Scott Jennings: “All we're lacking now is the face paint and a purple suit.”
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From the August 28, 2022 edition of CNN's State of the Union
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN (CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR): The problem is this. This does absolutely nothing to address the issue of higher education being unaffordable. And the fact that we're saying people who are making six figures, $125,000 a year, are going to have their student debt forgiven when the median income in this country is $67,000 a year. I am all for more programs if we want to have loan forgiveness for teachers, for nurses, Americorp, the Peace Corps, those things work to fill roles that we need to, but just to say you have a graduate degree but a third of this country didn't even have the opportunity to go to college, to get an associate's degree, didn't have the credit to take out a loan that they later can't pay back. It plays to this notion, I'm sorry, but that the Democrats are becoming the party of elites, and Donald Trump played to that. There's a reason working Americans turned out for Donald Trump, who I'm no fan of, but this is playing right into that.
SCOTT JENNINGS (CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR): It's a new feeling for me, the third person at the table jumping on top of a dog pile.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I think many important and smart things have been said at this table so I'll just add a couple. 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. And it's totally lawless. It's completely unconstitutional. It completely is in violation of our norm and you got a president with no agreement from Congress spending up to a half a trillion dollars. I mean, this is a massive, massive thing, and it's unprecedented, and Biden ran as someone who was going to restore our norms and restore the balance and restore our, you know, laws and institutions, and this is completely in opposition to all of that, all for politics. Some people have analyzed it that it's for politics for the midterm. This is primary politics. This is a guy who wants to run for re-election, and who, in the polling, which group of Democrats hates him the most? The young Democrats. So it is a payoff for the 2024 primary.