The Daily Signal - Biden’s New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan, Trump Clarifies Position on Abortion, Vatican Opposes Gender Surgeries | April 8

Starting point is 00:00:02 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Monday, April 8th. Here are today's headlines. Former President Donald Trump clarified his views on abortion in a video on true social this morning. According to the former president, each state should follow the will of the people and pass state-specific laws on abortion. My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation. or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land, in this case, the law of the state.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Trump's position on abortion has previously been a bit unclear looking towards the 2024 presidential election, despite the fact that the president did appoint the Supreme Court justices who were ultimately responsible for overturning Roby Wade in June of 2022. I want to thank the six justices, Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney-Barritt, and Neil Gorsuch, incredible people for having the courage to allow this long-term, hard-fought battle to finally end. This 50-year battle over Roe v. Wade took it out of the federal hands and brought it into the hearts, minds, and vote of the people in each state was really something.

Starting point is 00:01:38 Trump was clear that he and the Republican Party should and will always support families and women, and also noted that he does support all states having some exceptions to allow for abortions. Like Ronald Reagan, I am strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. Marjorie Danenfellzer is the president of Susan B. Anthony List pro-life America, and she responded to Trump's remarks, saying we are deeply disappointed in President Trump's position. She added that unborn children and their mothers deserve national protection and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act. Catholic vote, which is another pro-life group, praised Trump's overall stance while maintaining criticism for some of the former president's framing. For more on this story, you can check out today's show notes.

Starting point is 00:02:38 The Vatican has declared. clear that transgender surgery and surrogacy to be both grave violations of human dignity. That's according to reporting from the Associated Press. For five years, the Vatican has been working on a 20-page declaration called the Infinite Dignity. This declaration states that it follows that any sex change intervention as a rule, risk-threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception. The document does clarify that there is a difference between surgeries to remove or add body parts to align with someone's gender identity and surgeries to address genital abnormalities that do exist

Starting point is 00:03:21 from birth. The document says that those genital abnormalities can be resolved with the help of modern medicine. Pope Francis has made outreach to the LGBTQ community a priority during his papacy, but still he approved the document in March, according to the Associated Press. President Joe Biden announced a new student loan forgiveness plan earlier this morning. So who exactly is eligible for this plan? And will the president succeed in actually carrying out the plan? Or will the student loan plan be blocked, as was the last one?

Starting point is 00:03:57 Here with us to answer those questions is Madison Marino. She's a senior research associate in the Heritage Foundation's Center for Education Policy. Madison, thanks for what you're being with us. Thanks for having me. So what do we know right now about the student loan forgiveness plan and who exactly is eligible? Yeah. So we know that President Biden is today pitching kind of the new details of what he's calling his plan B on student loan mass cancellation in Madison, Wisconsin today. So what we know is this is his second attempt at mass loan cancellation. Again, he's doing it through regulation. So going around Congress with a proposed rule probably that's going to give us more details about what exactly the loan cancellation will. until over the next couple of weeks. So what we're kind of thinking just based on the negotiated

Starting point is 00:04:42 rulemaking that's been happening over at the department, we're expecting that with this new regulation, the Education Secretary Cardona, will be able to cancel debt for borrowers he expects it to default because they're experiencing hardship. Now, what is that hardship? We don't know exactly. And then also the rule would allow for loan cancellation for those who have seen balances rise because of maybe accrued interest or those who have been paying for about 20 plus years. That does sound very broad to say canceling for those experiencing hardship, because I'm sure many people might say I'm experiencing hardship and raise their hand for that. But on paper, maybe they're making a decent salary.

Starting point is 00:05:21 So how do you think the Biden administration is going to define hardship? Absolutely. So kind of what we've seen come out of the negotiated rolemaking committee is that the definition of hardship is very vague, like you've mentioned. We're thinking that it might include those who were Pell Grant recipients or those, those who are not able to, they were not able to finish their degree, which our concern is that together just those two factors would account for about 71% of college students nationwide. And it could maybe create even a perverse incentive to not pay back your loans if you were, if you were not able to finish a degree.

Starting point is 00:05:58 So we saw, of course, with the last time the president tried to do mass student loan forgiveness that ultimately that plan failed and was blocked by the courts. What are we going to see with this? Do you think a similar situation play out? Yes, yes. So, yeah, kind of what we're thinking is that, you know, this is a major overstep of what he can do as president. He really does have no constitutional authority for mass cancellation.

Starting point is 00:06:27 It's being done without express congressional authorization. And so we're thinking that, you know, just like the Supreme Court struck down his first initial plan on mass cancellation, we're thinking that more lawsuits will follow once the role comes out probably in the next couple of weeks, and hopefully we'll see a similar situation happen with the courts. So Madison, everyone can agree whether a Republican or Democrat that we have a problem in regards to student loans. Now, solutions vary, and opinions on those solutions vary.

Starting point is 00:06:56 But what would you say? How do we address what ultimately has become a bit of a crisis where you have so many Americans with massive debt? and so many Americans, young people, still going to college, taking out massive student loan debt. How do we stop this? Yeah, absolutely. So I think Congress really has the option to weigh in here. They're the ones that kind of address the higher cost of college.

Starting point is 00:07:18 And massive loan cancellation like the Biden administration's doing will only incentivize colleges to keep raising their tuition prices if they think the government, which is the American taxpayer, are going to be the ones that will pay for it ultimately. So there's several bills out there, the College Cost Reduction Act, put together by Virginia Fox, the House Education Workforce, German, our chairwoman, is a great example of those that will potentially kind of lower the cost of higher education over the long term. So just really looking to Congress to see what they can do and not the president in pursuing his massive loan cancellation. The Heritage Foundation's Madison Marino. Madison, thanks for your time today.

Starting point is 00:07:54 Awesome. Thanks for me. During a protest in Dearborn, Michigan on Friday, people were heard chanting death to America and death to Israel. The protest was held in celebration of Al-Coste, a pro-Palestinian event on the last Friday of Ramadan, which is Muslim's Holy Fast Month. Activist Tarek Bazi delivered remarks criticizing the U.S. and President Biden, per the Middle East Media and Research Institute. Take a listen. It's not genocide Joe that has to go. It's the entire system that has to go. Any system that would allow such atrocities and such devilry to.

Starting point is 00:08:33 happen and would support it, such a system does not deserve to exist on God's earth. And so when these fools ask us if Israel has the right to exist, the chant death to Israel has become the most logical chant shouted across the world today. The New York Post reports that since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, Dearborn has become a hotbed for anti-Israel sentiment. Well, we're ending the show on a little bit of a lighter note today. we hope that you got to see at least part of the solar eclipse today, depending upon where you were in the country. You might have experienced a total solar eclipse or, like us here in D.C.,

Starting point is 00:09:13 just a partial one. But eclipse means that, and a total solar eclipse specifically, means that the sun, the moon, and the earth all align. The moon passed this afternoon between the earth and the sun and that temporary blocked out the sun's light and it cast a shadow on the earth. The visible path of total eclipse traveled from Mexico through Texas, Arkansas, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine before then continuing on to Canada. The Weather Channel reports that the totality of that eclipse, depending upon where you were, lasted just over four minutes today. With that, that's going to do it for today's edition of the Daily Signal's top news. Thanks so much for being here with us today. If you have not checked out our morning show, it's right here in this exact same podcast feed.

Starting point is 00:10:00 And every weekday morning, we sit down with lawmakers, authors, and leading conservative voices to discuss critical issues facing our country. Tomorrow morning, I'm really excited to be sitting down with Associate Pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church from Texas, Jeremiah Johnston to talk about a very important event happening this Saturday in Texas. It's an event that even if you're not in Texas, you can be a part of as it discusses foster care and adoption. And specifically, what are the issues right now? in America surrounding foster care and adoption and what needs to change so that we as a pro-life nation can support kids waiting for permanent homes or hoping to be reunified with their families through foster care. Thanks again for being with us today. Make sure that you check out that conversation once again with Jeremiah Johnston tomorrow morning.

Starting point is 00:10:50 And if you have a minute, leave the Daily Signal podcast a five-star rating and review. We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Bluey and Kate Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Mary Margaret O'Lehann, and Tyler O'Neill. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more or support our work, please visitdailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Biden’s New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan, Trump Clarifies Position on Abortion, Vatican Opposes Gender Surgeries | April 8

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