“The President needs to move it in a way that is efficient, effective and impactful… What will be key in this moment is implementation, and that is what I will be closely following.”

“I am encouraged [that they] came out quickly, spoke directly to borrowers and they are prepared to move with nimbleness to deliver this meaningful relief.”

Video (YouTube)

BOSTON – In an interview this evening on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) discussed the Supreme Court’s callous obstruction of President Biden’s student debt relief plan and responded to the President’s alternative proposal to deliver relief under the Higher Education Act. Rep. Pressley applauded President Biden for moving quickly to announce this alternative plan and called for swift and efficient implementation.

Rep. Pressley has been a leading voice in Congress urging President Biden to cancel student debt. Following years of advocacy by Rep. Pressley—in partnership with colleagues, borrowers, and advocates—the Biden-Harris Administration announced a historic plan to cancel student debt that stands to benefit over 40 million people.

Transcript: Pressley Responds to Biden Student Debt Announcement, Urges Swift Action
June 30, 2023

JOY REID:  Talk about the actual injury that we’re going to see based on the fact that the court has decided that even though the statute said that the Department of Education could modify these loans, apparently they can’t.

REP. PRESSLEY: Well, more of the same. More harm from this far right, extremist, imbalanced Supreme Court. They have been enlisted as co-conspirators in this extremist agenda, from state legislatures to the lower courts, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Joy, if they were a caucus in Congress, they would be called the “Forced Birth, Don’t Say Gay, Bootstrapper, Anti-Black Caucus,” and they are all but obliterating any ladders to social and economic mobility. Yesterday’s ruling gutting affirmative action, and this decision today is devastating, and it will be deeply consequential, especially for the most marginalized. 

There are some 43 million people who are in dire need of this life changing relief. Educators who took on this debt because they want to teach our babies and they can’t afford to raise their own children and meet the monthly minimums. Senior citizens on fixed incomes who’ve had their wages garnished, because they still owe, in fact, they owe more now than they took out. A whole generation of millennial and Gen Z who cannot [buy] a home, grow a family, or start a business. 

And of course, Black and brown borrowers. Black borrowers who have been locked out of every major federal relief program in this country from the Homestead Act to the GI Bill, targeted by redlining. We are earning more income, but we have not built wealth. And so Black borrowers borrower and default at higher rates, and this executive action would have canceled out to zero for one in four Black borrowers, their debt.

Might also add, since this is the forced birth court. They really want women to be in a permanent second class status. Not only have we not enshrined gender equality in our Constitution, pass the ERA, not only have they obstructed the will of the majority of the people in overturning Roe with the Dobbs decision. But with this decision today, to block the relief, the student debt relief, two thirds of women disproportionately carry this nearly $2 trillion debt here. 

So this is deeply consequential. I have been an ongoing conversation with the White House for the last two years to make plain the face of these borrowers. And you heard today the President speak directly to the borrowers. This movement has made plain the stakes and might also add that it is so critically important that this transformative relief is delivered to the very coalition of voters that delivered this White House.

JOY REID: Let me let me play for you. You mentioned President Biden, this is what he said today about what he’s going to do about the loans issue.

PRESIDENT BIDEN: But let’s be clear, some of the same elected Republicans, members of Congress who strongly oppose giving relief to students, got hundreds of thousands of dollars themselves in relief, members of Congress, because of the businesses they were able to keep up open. Several members of Congress got over a million dollars. All those loans were forgiven. Now, a kid making 60,000 bucks, trying to pay back his bills, asking for $10,000 in relief. Come on. The hypocrisy is stunning.

JOY REID: That was actually him talking about the hypocrisy. And to that very point, there is a Representative named Ralph Norman who said, “you can’t cancel student loan debt anymore than you can cancel a car note.” He got 306,520 in PPP loans forgiven. I’m just going to put up the list of the other people, from Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, all the way down, who also got millions, in some cases, of dollars of loan relief. 

What the President did say, Congresswoman, is that they’re going to lower the return, the repayment threshold to a maximum of five percent of income and that they’re going to go back and find a way to still give this relief. Do you think the White House has an aggressive enough plan to essentially backstop and help people anyway despite the Supreme Court?

REP. PRESSLEY: First, let me speak plainly to borrowers who are distressed right now as they think about what this will mean for their lives every day: the President has heard you and he spoke directly to you today. 

And I’m going to continue to make plain not only the stakes here, because this is transformative and sorely-needed change and relief. It’s also wildly popular, which is why this political, legislating Supreme Court wants to obstruct it. But the President needs to move it in a way that is efficient, effective and impactful. And so what will be key in this moment is implementation, and that is what I will be closely following. 

But I do, I am encouraged by the fact that Secretary Cardona and the President came out quickly, spoke directly to borrowers and they are prepared to move with nimbleness to deliver this meaningful relief.

JOY REID: Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, thank you very much, much appreciated.

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