The Young Turks - Kept Promises

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

The Biden Administration has announced student debt relief for individuals that make less than $125K a year. The House Leadership delays social security expansion while simultaneously crafting tax breaks for the rich. The Young Turks interview Andrew Warren. President Biden Announces the United States will provide $3 billion in aid to Ukraine. A survey finds that over 70% of recent home buyers regret their purchase. Host: Ana Kasparian *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to TYTY, I'm your host Anna Casparian, and we have a fantastic show ahead for you today. There's actually a little bit of good news in the news cycle, which is rare to say the least. But of course, we're going to break down Biden's student loan debt forgiveness. What does it entail? Where does it fall short? And where do I see some optimism? We'll get into it. My favorite story of the day is just all of these right wingers and wealthy corporate media

figures just whining about Biden having the audacity to just help ordinary people with their student loan debt. So we'll dunk on them. And more importantly, we'll dismantle their ridiculous argument for why it's allegedly a bad idea to forgive a modest portion of student loan debt. And later in the show, we're going to have a fantastic interview with a prosecutor from the state of Florida who was retaliated against by Governor Ron DeSantis. In fact, he has been suspended because he took a pledge to refuse to prosecute anyone who is breaking anti-abortion laws in the state of Florida. And he's also refusing to prosecute anyone who's providing gender affirming care. A bit of an American hero, if you ask me, I love that he signed that pledge.

But we'll talk about what his next move is because he is now pursuing some legal action against Ron DeSantis. We'll see where that's headed. In the second hour, John Iderola will be joining me to get into some more news, including some lighter stories that I'm looking forward to talking to you about. And in the first hour, let me just jump back to the first hour real quick. We'll talk about Nancy Pelosi blocking an incredibly important bill that would expand social security and also prevent it from getting privatized in the future. But before all that, just want to encourage you to like and share the stream. And if you're not a member, you should become one because we will be having an awesome bonus

episode for our members today, t.yt.com slash join or just click on that join button if you're watching us on YouTube. Without further ado, let's get into the biggest news story of the day. What's the metaphor for forgiving college day? It would be like someone who is addicted to heroin, who is going through horrendous withdrawals. And there's a certain person in the room who says, well, only thing we can do to do away with these withdrawals is give them another bump of heroin. from a Fox News host who of course is coping hard with the fact that President Joe Biden today has announced that he will be forgiving a portion of student loan debt. And yes, it'll be means tested. Yes, there are limitations to the amount that will be forgiven. But nonetheless,

one of the unexpected benefits of this news is that we get to watch wealthy people cry all over the corporate media. I know that was a Fox News clip, but believe me, it doesn't matter what you're watching, whether it's CNN, MSNBC, network news, all sorts of ridiculous arguments against the one really great thing that Biden has done, okay? And that is forgive student loan debt. I want to give you the details on how he is going to do it. Now, he first made the announcement via Twitter where he wrote, in keeping with my campaign promise, my administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle class families breathing room as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January of 2023.

So that by itself is already a big announcement because he is also noting that the repayments of student loans don't start back up until January of 2023. So with the new year, the payments will begin again. So that was a piece of news in and of itself. And in that tweet, he also included this graphic that says that some students will or some student loan borrowers, I should say, can expect $20,000 to be forgiven if they went to college while receiving Pell grants. Okay, and you only qualify for Pell Grants if there's proof submitted that indicates that you come from a lower income family. So it's a little bit of government assistance, certainly not enough government assistance to prevent students from going into debt,

But nonetheless, for students who did not need Pell grants, they can still qualify for student loan forgiveness to the tune of $10,000. And it will be means tested, as that graphic had noted. So if you're making more than $125,000 a year, you will not qualify. But there are other pretty surprising goodies in this announcement and will learn more details in the coming days. But the Department of Education will announce details on how borrowers can claim this relief. if they have to apply for it, so it's not some automatic program. It would have been better if it was automatic. Sometimes there's a barrier for some people when it comes to the application process.

But nonetheless, the department is also proposing a federal rule aimed at making the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers. So we'll learn some more details about that as well in coming days. But here's what we know detail wise. The proposed rule would change or income based repayment for student loans, cutting in half the amount borrowers would have to pay each month on their undergraduate loans while borrowers with both undergraduate and graduate loans will pay a weighted average rate. So the proposal would also, and I think this part's really important, okay, the proposal would also raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore protected from repayment.

And it would forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments rather than 20 years under many income driven repayment plans for borrowers with original loan balances of $12,000 or less, the department said. So the $12,000 or less that limitation is concerning. But I do like the fact that they have made the repayment program a lot easier for these students. The debt forgiveness after 10 years is good news as well. And the only concern I have about that is, as we saw with the Trump administration, if you have a more unfriendly pro-corporate administration in place, they might not honor the loan forgiveness program as the Biden administration envisions it. So there needs to be some safeguards in place to ensure that a Republican administration doesn't

essentially go against this, because this is at the end of the day, an executive order. He's doing this through executive action. This is not something that was done through Congress. And just like with the DACA program under Obama, you can have someone like Trump come in and essentially reverse the program through an executive order. Because again, if it's done through executive order, it's easier for an incoming administration to essentially reverse it. And I am concerned about that, but just something to keep in mind. The other thing to keep in mind is if you do manage to benefit from this announcement and you do get $10,000 or $20,000 in student loans forgiven, just keep in mind that it is likely, very likely that you will have

to pay income taxes on that forgiven amount. Okay, so something to keep in mind as you plan ahead and plan for your annual tax filing. Now, it's important to remember that while everyone is demanding more in student loan forgiveness, and I certainly would have loved to see that, to be fair to Biden, he was always honest about what he wanted to do on the campaign trail. So on the campaign trail, Biden called for immediately canceling a minimum of $10,000 in student loan debt per person as a response to the pandemic. As well as forgiving this he didn't do, as well as forgiving all undergraduate tuition related federal student debt from two and four year public colleges and universities for

those borrowers earning up to $125,000 a year. So what I would like to see moving forward is more of a band, more than just a Band-Aid when it comes to the very real problem that we're seeing with higher education in this country. It's become incredibly unaffordable, unattainable. There are less young people even considering college today because they don't want to dig themselves into a massive hole of debt that they can't discharge in a bankruptcy. So I would really like to see more of a systemic solution that gives students a more affordable option. And a good way to do that is to go back to what we used to have in this country when we had free public colleges, right? You want to pay for a private college? Do you, boo? That's up to you. But when it comes

to public colleges and universities, I really do think they should be tuition free. We need to have a system in place where everyone, regardless of what their socioeconomic status is, has the ability to get a higher education. Because at the end of the day, we all know that someone with a college degree is very likely to earn more money through their career compared to an individual who did not get a college degree. So I want that opportunity to be afforded for everyone. And this is something that is going to provide some relief for now. But remember, we're already dealing with $1.4 trillion in federal student loan debt. So this is going to cut that down a little bit. But But in a few years, we'll be right back to where we were today, right?

And so, or where we were before Biden decided to do a little bit of debt forgiveness. It doesn't solve the problem, it's a bit of a band-aid, to be honest. And I would like to see, again, a change in how this system works. So there is an option for people to go to college without having to take out any debt at all, or very little debt, if any. So this is also just kicking the can down the road. So there is currently $1.6 trillion dollars of outstanding federal student loan debt. The amount of outstanding debt would return to that level in just four years after 10,000

thousand dollars per borrower was canceled. And that's according to the committee for a responsible federal budget. And prior to the announcement, Biden had also forgiven tens of billions of dollars in student loans for students who had been defrauded from for profit colleges. So those were the derives, the ITT texts, the Corinthians colleges. He has forgiven about $32 billion in federal student loans for students who had gone to these types of institutions. And while there are all sorts of Chicago School of Economics, goons on the corporate press today, crying about this. In reality, they're not concerned about, I don't think they're actually concerned about inflation. Like, that's one of the top arguments they make. The other talking point

is, well, what about all the people who paid their student loans? It's not fair to them. Look, if you happen to fall in that camp, if you manage to pay off your student loans, I hear you. I'm sure you worked really, really hard to do it. But you got through it. And right now, there are a ton of people in this country who are struggling because of that unbearable debt looming over them, debt that they cannot discharge, debt that's holding them back from just doing basic things that older generations were able to do once they were adults. Things like buying homes, being able to have children, there are things that people want to do that they can't engage in because of the economic burden associated with insanely high tuition, which of course

translates to insanely high student loan debt. And so, I mean, it's like the same reasoning as, oh, I have a family member who died of cancer. Why are we looking for a cure for cancer? My family member couldn't take advantage of it. Like, society progresses. You know, we should be happy about that. And we should be happy that for once we have the government very modestly looking out for ordinary people as opposed to corporate interests. And so that's why I will give Biden some credit for this. I will also give him credit for the way he reacted during a press conference. That's a story that we'll do a little later because he was asked by reporters whether this was the right move and whether this is going to have an impact on inflation.

and Biden had a shockingly good answer. Now, let's talk a little bit about why the corporate world wants to do absolutely nothing in relieving student loan debt. It's because the interest associated with paying back federal student loans is really a regressive tax. We have cut taxes on the rich. We have cut taxes on corporations. And the federal government is able to recoup some of those lost revenues through charging

interest on federal student loans. And while it might be a little difficult to find the exact numbers, Slate actually did a pretty good job in looking for just how much the federal government makes from these federal student loan interest payments. So let's go to Graphic 7 here. 70.3 billion is the amount the government collected on its loan portfolio in financial year 2019. That was the last full year before payments were paused due to the coronavirus pandemic, 32% of the total or 22.4 billion consisted of interest payments, okay? So they're getting some of their money back, meaning the principal plus the interest. So they're collecting $22.4 billion on student loan interest alone. Now the federal government also uses this shady little trick used by big banks

when it comes to mortgages, and I want to talk about that. So student loans are structured to amortize like a mortgage, okay, with debtors mostly paying interest early on and principal later. So when you hear these stories about students who have been paying at least the minimum payment necessary on their student loans, and they've been doing it for years and years and years and they notice that their amount continues to go up, it's because all they're really paying is that they're really paying is the interest, that's it. The interest is front loaded just like it is with a mortgage, right? Just like it is with a big bank or a credit union. They want to make sure they collect their interest before they allow you to pay down your principal. And the fact that the federal

government is doing that with federal student loans is insane. But it gives you a sense of what the priority here is, right? They want to make sure they increase the federal government's revenue on the backs of people who just wanted to better their lives and get a decent higher education. So compare that to how the elected federal, unelected, I should say, how the unelected federal reserve does things, right? Because if we're going to do a comparison here, all right, let's help out the homies, let's help out the students who are struggling with student loan debt. And everyone's freaking out about the number because some analysis indicates that it would cost the federal government somewhere between 200,000, 200 billion to 300 billion dollars to do this,

this whole program. Well, keep in mind that when the pandemic happened, the unelected federal reserve decided to pump money into corporations to keep them afloat. And when you compare the numbers here, it really tells you where the priorities have been for corporate media and for all the individuals who are now whining about students getting some relief. As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, in March of 2020, the Fed implemented an aggressive QE strategy, that's quantitative easing. It immediately injected more than $700 billion in asset purchases. In June of 2020, it implemented an ongoing QE program to purchase 120 billion of bonds per month, 80 billion in US Treasury securities and 40 billion in mortgage-backed securities. That program continued until the Fed started

tapering its purchases in December of 2021. So when it comes to helping out corporations, when it comes to essentially buying assets, the Federal Reserve buying assets to keep these companies afloat, even to the tune of $700 billion in the very beginning of the pandemic, you really get a sense of what the commentary that we're hearing today is really about. I mean, there was no pushback about what the Fed had done with quantitative easing. So much pushback when it comes to, again, a mere 10 to 20,000 getting forgiven in student loan debt per student loan borrower, assuming they're making less than $125,000 a year. And I should also note that the media is being incredibly dishonest about how the general public feels about what Biden did

today. For instance, if you go to CNBC, there's a headline that says, 59% of Americans worry, student loan forgiveness will make inflation worse. So you get the sense by seeing that headline that the majority of Americans are against this. And the article CNBC published was in regard to a poll that they had done with momentive. And if you just go all the way down in that piece to get the poll results that are actually relevant, you'll find that the survey found that 30% of all adults say there should be no student, there should be no student. loan forgiveness for anyone. So that's it.

Just 30% of Americans are against it. Meaning 80% of Americans are in favor of providing. I'm sorry, 70% of Americans are in favor of providing student loan relief to these borrowers. Yet there are sharp divides, I should note, among those who hold the view. While 39% of men say no loan should be forgiven, just 22% of women agree with that statement. only 19% of adults between 18 and 34 say no loans should be forgiven versus 39% over the age of 65. And those results aren't really that shocking when you consider that the people who are impacted the most by these insane tuition costs and the student loan debt are young people. They want to get a higher education and the cost burden associated with it is just unbearable.

So the results of that survey don't surprise me. And to be honest, the results of how the media is handling this also does not surprise me. But definitely dig deeper. Don't let them lie to you. It's about time the federal government does something to help average Americans with their own economic struggles. All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about PPP loans, just how much was given to people who are already incredibly wealthy and how much of that money, how much of those loans were forgiven.

It's important to juxtapose. And we'll do just that when we come back. Welcome back to the show. We have a fantastic. Welcome back to the show. We have a fantastic interview for you right now. And before we get to that, I want to set it up and give you an update on what's transpiring in the state of Florida. Florida governor Ron DeSantis is facing a lawsuit from Hillsborough County state attorney Andrew Warren, who DeSantis had suspended for essentially exercising his free speech and prosecutorial judgment. Now Warren was dismissed from his post for pledging he would not prosecute cases stemming from Florida's 15 week abortion ban and potential bans on gender affirming care. To give you a little more background on what's

happening in Florida in June, the day that Dobbs v. Jackson ruling was handed down. Effectively ending the federal right to abortion access, Warren joined dozens of prosecutors around the country in signing a pledge that they would refrain from using limited criminal, using the limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions. And back in 2021, Warren also signed a similar joint statement with other elected prosecutors affirming that health care decisions should be private discretion and said they would not use their office to promote the criminalization of gender reforming health care or transgender people. Now here is Andrew Warren, elaborated.

on the lawsuit that he has filed against Governor Ron DeSantis. I came to Tallahassee this morning to file a federal lawsuit, challenging Governor DeSantis's blatant abuse of power and suspending me from office. The governor has broken two laws. He's violated my First Amendment rights by retaliating against me for speaking out on abortion and transgender rights. And he's violated the Florida Constitution by removing me from office without any legal justification, throwing out the results of a fair and free election. We filed a lawsuit to make sure that even though Ron DeSantis is governor, the First Amendment still has meaning. Florida's constitution still has meaning. And elections and democracy still

have meaning. Come join us in this fight. Andrew WarrenFL.com, Andrew WarrenFL.com. We must defend democracy now. Now, it's important to note that Andrew Warren wasn't appointed by some government official in Florida. He was elected into the position that he has now been suspended from being able to carry out. And Warren has been in office since 2016 and was reelected in 2020 with more than 53% of the vote. And in response, a spokesperson from DeSantis's office argues, quote, it's not surprising Warren, who was suspended for refusing to follow the law, would file a legally baseless lawsuit challenging his suspension, we look forward to responding in court. Well, luckily joining us now is Andrew Warren, the man who has been persecuted against by DeSantis as part of his

little political stunt and his endless culture war. Warren, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. So I want to start off with the precedent here. Is there precedent that indicates the governor of Florida has in the past essentially just suspended any person in elected office in the state that he just doesn't like because his prosecutorial judgment doesn't jive with his. No, none whatsoever. I mean, the governor has limited limited power under the Florida Constitution to suspend an elected official. And it's usually reserved for situations where someone has committed a crime or where someone has become truly incompetent, like physically or mentally unable to do the job as if they had a stroke, for example.

For the governor to suspend me for something that I said for speaking out is just a dangerous attack on free speech. I mean, I totally agree with you on that. And it's so, brazen in in that he targeted you, not only for your political speech, but because of your political beliefs and political views, something that we hear Republicans like him claim they're persecuted for when in reality they're the ones who are running around doing the persecuting. It's pretty amazing. And so. Yeah, but brazen is the right word for it. You know, the people who claim to support the rule of law, who claim to follow the Constitution, really only like to do so when it's convenient for them, when it serves their own political agenda or their own political narrative.

So let's talk a little bit about prosecutorial judgment because I was under the assumption I could be wrong, that prosecutors get to decide what they pursue criminally, right? Like if someone has broken the law, you get to decide as a prosecutor whether or not it makes sense to pursue charges against that individual or group of individuals. So explain just how much leeway prosecutors in Florida have in regard to being able to use their judgment. Well, the prosecutors have absolute discretion to do their jobs. And that, I mean, that's the language that the Supreme Court has used in describing our authority. And it's not that prosecutors should be deciding, you know, what laws they're going to enforce or not enforce. it's prosecutors are exercising that discretion in terms of promoting public safety,

in terms of using the limited resources of the office to do what's best for our community. So let me give you an example in the context of what we're talking about. In a situation where we have a rape victim who needs to have an abortion and ends up having abortion and it's after the 15 week ban. And we'll just just to pause for a moment, the 15 week ban, by the way, that was passed by Florida has been held unconstitutional in the state of Florida. So a totally separate conversation about my willingness or lack thereof to enforce a law that's unconstitutional.

But just to go back to the example of discretion, in a situation where we're prosecuting both the rape, we're prosecuting the rapist. And now the governor wants me to prosecute the rape victim because she had an abortion after it's too late. Not only do we, should we be exercising discretion there, but you can't do both. As a practical matter, I mean, once we start prosecuting the victim, which is just mind blowing to think that anyone would want us to do that, it jeopardizes our ability to prosecute the rapist. So it just comes down to this point. Who should we be prosecuting? What makes our

community safe? Should we be going after victims and doctors and women for making these decisions? Or should we be focusing limited resources on violent criminals, sexual predators, you know, the serious fraudsters, the repeat offense, that's who we've gone after. in the state attorney's office, that's what my community wants. That's what we'll keep doing. You had solved a pretty serious case involving two murder suspects, if I'm not mistaken. And you were planning on a press conference to announce that, but that didn't really make much news because of what had happened to you. Can you talk a little bit about what you were able to do in that case that you solved and why it's important to focus resources on those issues as opposed to persecuting victims of rape? Sure. Well, our office launched a conviction review unit. And that's a specialized unit within a

prosecutor's office that looks at potentially wrongful convictions. In three years ago, we started looking at a case where a man had been convicted and sentenced to, he was sentenced to death initially, but he spent 37 years in prison. And as we discovered, for a crime he didn't commit. So two years ago, we exonerated him with overwhelming evidence of his innocence. But we got to work after that happened because when you convict the wrong person, it means that the right perpetrators have never been held accountable. So two years of investigation, we were able to not only build a case against these two guys for the rape and murder of the victim in that case, but we determined that they'd committed

another rape and murder around the same time that had never been charged for 39 years. So on the day that I was suspended, I was supervising the grand jury presentation to indict these two men of two separate rapes and murderers that had been outstanding for 39 years. I made a promise to the victim's families that I would be there with them to share the good news. And even though the governor removed me from office, I didn't break my promise. I was able to actually meet with the victim's families to tell them that we had finally, after four decades, charged the people responsible for killing their loved one. I gotta say, you know, we cover the criminal justice system on the show quite a bit. And it's rare to come across prosecutors who are willing to reopen a case and consider that there are wrongful convictions and help exonerate individuals who are wrongfully convicted. And the reason why I bring that up is because it's it's hard to come across prosecutors who are really good at their jobs and who try to do it in as moral and ethically, as morally in ethically as possible. And so it's, I'm really sadden to hear that, you know, you were targeted like

this. But I'm also curious, you know, we hear about the crime wave across the country and really no state has been spared this, this crime wave. Hopefully it's a short one. But I'm curious what it's like in Florida in regard to the crime wave, because I want the audience to understand what Ron DeSantis is doing is actually making his state way less safe because he's telling the prosecutors in his state, no, no, no, just put all that other important stuff involving violent crime on the back burner. I want you to split up your time focusing on going after people who are seeking gender affirming care or women who are seeking abortions past 15 weeks. I mean, it's insane. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question. And you're making a terrific point.

I'll go one step further. I mean, we have a policy in our office that's come under scrutiny because for low-level traffic offenses, which are often crimes of poverty, you know, someone is driving on a suspended license because they couldn't afford to pay off their speeding ticket in time. We had a policy where, generally speaking, we would not prosecute those cases and we would try to work with the defendant to get their license back because then they become a licensed and an insured driver. That is the most common case we had in our office. And so we were able to dismiss thousands of charges a year for those cases where we help people to get their licenses back. So now, if they want us to prosecute every case to the fullest extent of

the law, you know, that tough on crime, that works for certain types of offenses. But the rapes and the murders and the armed burglaries, they represent a small fraction of what we see every day. Most of the cases we have are misdemeanors. And it's much better for public safety to divert those cases to put those cases into a treatment program or rehabilitation or some sort of, you know, lesser sentence than throwing the book at someone so that we can really dedicate our resources to the most serious crimes. And you asked about the crime wave. Crime has gone up in big cities, small cities, suburban areas, rural areas. Florida is no exception and my area of Tampa is no exception. But it's important to keep in mind that since I've been the state attorney, Tampa in the

Hellsboro County, the crime rate's gone down 30% over the past five years. We have a lowest crime rate of any county in the Tampa Bay area. Lowest crime rate of any major county in the state of Florida. So this has nothing to do with what I've done as state attorney. This is really about that I've spoken out against policies, you know, as you said at the beginning, the governor's favorite culture war issues. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you got fired for being excellent at your job. and for being a moral person who actually wants to focus on what matters in terms of your prosecutorial judgment. And I really appreciate that. So let's talk about the future because you filed this lawsuit. What do you see happening ahead? Well, we asked for an expedited schedule with

the court. And it looks like that that's going to happen. I think both sides realize that this should be resolved relatively quickly. And so we're hoping that in about a month, which is fast for federal court that we'll have a hearing before the judge and we'll get an answer. And look, you can never guarantee an outcome in court, but we know that the law is on our side and we know that democracy is at stake. This is so much more about than me. This is about more than one elected official being suspended. This is a fight for the integrity of our elections and the state. If the governor can suspend an elected official on a whim and replace that person with whoever he wants, What's the point of having elections?

What's left of our democracy? And who did he replace you with? Because remember, I mean, you were elected into the position that you were serving. The people elected you into that position. Whereas now, since, you know, you've been suspended, the governor gets to appoint your replacement. Talk about who that replacement was. The governor appointed someone who had been a judge for a short period of time in the county. who, you know, I think fits the governor's profile for who we'd want as a prosecutor,

you know, federalist society, conservative. And look, this isn't really about her. But it is about the fact that in my 2020 election, I received 370,000 votes in Hillsborough County. That's 140,000 more votes than the governor received in Hillsborough County in his last election. So someone who got, you know, way fewer votes than I did is, taking me out of office and putting someone into office who's never received one vote for any position in her entire life. That's not how democracy works. You know, even when I'm talking with my elementary school age daughter about this, she's really confused. She's like, but you won the election. Isn't that democracy? Yeah, that's democracy, or at least it's supposed

to make. Yeah, I'm getting the sense that kids are starting to learn younger and younger, that our systems aren't all that they're cracked up to be. You know, some of the whitewashing that we get in our history lessons can easily be erased through just living in reality a little bit. And I hate that your daughter gets to experience that so early on in her life. But, you know, I'm really, really proud of what you did here because you're speaking truth to power. And I think you're using the best judgment in wanting to focus resources and attention on crimes that actually victimize people. And I hope that you win. We need more prosecutors like you who actually think about these things thoroughly. And you know, you don't want to cause more pain and suffering

to people. So more power to you. And I hope you come back on to give us an update. Stay strong. I'd be happy to you. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you. Have a good one. You too. All right, everyone. We're going to take a brief break. And when we come back, We're gonna jump right back to the student loan debt discussion. We'll talk about what certain individuals are saying in regard to how this is so wrong, so unfair, we'll debunk their arguments and more coming right up. What's up everyone. Welcome back to TYT. I actually want to get back into the discussion about Biden for giving student loans or a portion of student loans. And we have a positive update as well. And I want to give you this correction. So it turns out that the amount forgiven in the student loans will not be considered taxable income. And that is so important. It's really, really good news. So Jeff Stein from Washington Post says due to a provision that Chuck Shooter, included in the American Rescue Plan last year, Biden's student debt forgiveness will not

be counted as taxable income. That's really important because previously any debt that's forgiven will count as taxable income. And then you have to pay a lot more in your taxes when you file. But because of this provision, which shockingly was included in the American Rescue you planned by Chuck Schumer, the amount forgiven will not be considered taxable income. So I wanted to make that clarification, that's actually really, really good news. Now other news related to the student loan debt story has to do with the corporate world, really having a tough time coping with it. So let's discuss. Following President Joe Biden's announcement that he has a plan in place to forgive some portion of student

loans offering some relief to student loan borrowers, the wealthy couldn't stop themselves by going on the corporate press to talk about how this is a terrible, awful idea. In fact, during the press conference in which Biden announced this plan, the reporters asked the questions you would expect them to ask. So let's take a quick look at that. Is this unfair to people who paid their student loans or chose not to take out loans? Is it fair to people who in fact, do not own multi-billion-dollar businesses. They've seen what these guys get involved with that things? Is that fair?

What do you think? What about people who've paid their loans though? Struggle to pay their loans and now others don't have to. What? Okay, look, I want you guys to understand. We're not harsh toward Biden simply because we dislike Biden. Biden, to me, he's not a good guy or a bad guy. He's a politician.

So you judge based on the rhetoric, but more importantly, the policy. Now, while his debt forgiveness plan leaves us desiring a lot more, obviously, it's still going to provide much needed relief to student loan borrowers. The average student loan borrower has about $30,000 in student loan debt. But of course, we know endless stories of students who have far more than that. However, I will say the way he handled that question was perfect. And that brings me to what we've been seeing all over the internet, all over television today. And it's the same argument about how, oh, how could you do that?

It's not fair, it's just not fair. All these other people who have paid off their student loans, they didn't get any help. It's not fair. It's not fair. Well, for the people who did manage to pay off their student loans, I'd venture to say they probably went to school at a time when tuition wasn't astronomically priced. And secondly, if you're salty about other people's lives getting a little easier, you got to check your priorities, okay, check your priorities.

But putting that aside, I want to go to this tweet from the House Judiciary GOP. They write, if you take out a loan, you pay it back, period. Oh, do you? Do you? Hmm, interesting. Let's take a look at the next tweet. This is from Cap Action, where they list all of these Republican lawmakers who took PPP loans during the coronavirus pandemic. And these are all loans that were forgiven. They were forgiven.

I should also note many of these people were already independently wealthy and probably didn't need any loans to begin with. But you got Matt Gates, he received a PPP loan that was nearly half a million dollars, $476,000 and it was forgiven. We didn't hear anyone in the corporate press cry about that. You have Marjorie Taylor Green, $180,000, forgiven. Greg Pence, $79,441. Look at this Vern Buchanan Fellow in Florida, $2.8 million. in PPP loans that was forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. Okay, I mean, the list goes on and on. You've got Mark Wayne Mullen, $98,700.

You've got Carol Miller, a Republican from West Virginia, $3.1 million. Again, it's not just about them getting the loan. These are loans that were forgiven. Don't you wonder why there's absolutely no concern about that in the press? But the idea of a student getting $10,000 of student loan debt forgiven, like that makes them lose their minds. Like that's all they've been talking about today. How unfair it is. Oh, it might lead to inflation. Really? Let's see the receipts. How is it going to lead to inflation? I want

to understand how it works. You just say it. You just say it. I mean, never mind, the fact that there's been a pause on student loan repayments during COVID, which obviously puts more money in people's pockets, was that really the cause of inflation? Or could it be the Federal Reserve pumping money into big banks, which they then use to do corporate stock buybacks? Could it be supply chain issues? Because we exploit underpaid labor in other countries. And once there's a pandemic and once there are shutdowns, and once there are disruptions, there's less supply that can't keep up with demand, could that be because what's leading to inflation? No, that anything they don't like, this is what drives me crazy about inflation

narratives, anything the corporate press doesn't like policy wise, they'll automatically attach it to inflation, automatically. Oh, you're gonna help ordinary people inflation. We're worried about inflation. They did it with build back better. They're doing it now with modest assistance to student loan borrowers. But by the way, we were talking about Mark Wayne Mullen, right? Who got nearly a million dollars of PPP loans forgiven. He also couldn't help himself but tweet about what Biden did today. He writes, we do not need farmers and ranchers, small business owners, and teachers in Oklahoma

paying the debts of Ivy League lawyers and doctors across the United States. This place this is undue burden on those already suffering due to the weight of Biden's failed economic policy. Fascinating, because all the people that you just mentioned also happen to subsidize the research and development for the same pharmaceutical drugs that they are then price gaugged on. No concern about that, Mark Wayne. No concern. No worries about that at all. I would argue that's a failed economic policy that you support, but you don't talk about it. No one about it, drives me crazy. Let's go to Steven Crowder. This is amazing. Student loan forgiveness sounds really nice to illegal immigrants, people with no life experience, people who don't have

families yet, and people who use preferred pronouns. Like the tweet itself really makes no sense. So are you alleging that undocumented immigrants are applying for federal loans? And also people who don't who don't have families yet. Okay, so he's trying to make a point here about like, oh, families are having to foot the bill for these students. How dare how dare Biden attempt to assist ordinary people in making their economic situation just slightly, slightly better, ever so slightly. Well, Stephen Crowder, let's take a look at how much you took out in PPP loans.

Oh wow, took out $70,445. And the amount forgiven, I'm not really sure how it works out this way, but $71,208. I'm guessing the interest was included, yes, includes any occurred interest. So, hey, are you, I'm pretty sure Stephen Crowder's doing real well. I'm trying to understand how he was impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. I mean, he's able to work from a studio. He doesn't have to be out and about. He's not a frontline worker. He's not a grocery store worker. He's not an essential worker,

that's for sure, because I'm an essential part of the media. But he got $70,000 in PPP loans, and it was all forgiven. So he should be a man of his word and pay every dollar back to the U.S. taxpayer. 70% of Americans who were recently polled on forgiving student loan debt were in favor of forgiving student loan debt. That's the majority of the country. Because guess what? the majority of the country who are not represented by corporate media or rich right wingers on YouTube, understand the pain, they understand the suffering, and they want to help their fellow Americans out. I would venture to say that's actual patriotism. But Stephen Crowder loves to pad his pockets with that government cheese and then point his finger at others who are getting

any assistance whatsoever. Let's go to the next one. I like this graphic. It was shared by Ken Clippenstein. And it gives you a sense of all the wealthy people who were able to get PPP loans. Now, not all of them were forgiven, but Jared Kushner, who got 800, no, I'm sorry, his net worth is $800 million. He qualified for a $3 million PPP loan, $3 million, and it was forgiven. Kanye West, we don't know if it was forgiven. He's worth $2 billion, and he received almost 2.4 million in PPP loans. Jay-Z, he's worth $1.3 billion.

He received over $1.1 million in PPP loans. Then you've got Diddy, who's worth $900 million. He received nearly $2 million in PPP loans, and they were forgiven. Same with Paul Pelosi, notorious alleged insider trader because his wife, Nancy Pelosi, is a member of Congress, who's privy to insider information that they could, of course, trade stocks on. Homeboy is worth a lot of money, $120 million. He received a PPP loan to the tune of $1.7 million, and that was forgiven. Same with Chloe Kardashian. She received a $1.2 million PPP loan. Forgiven.

I mean, you guys see what I'm trying to get at here? Please spare me the concerns about the lack of fairness in giving in giving people a little bit of money, and by the way, not even giving them money, just forgiving a small portion of their student loans. That's it. That's all it is. I mean, we're not talking about all federal student loans getting forgiven. We're talking about a means tested program. No one qualifies for it if they're making $125,000 a year or more. And the most a borrower can expect, expect from what Biden announced today is $20,000 in debt forgiveness. That's it. But they look at that and they think, no, this is this is an unacceptable redistribution of wealth.

Now, people who make that argument are just garbage. They really are. And anyone who buys into it is watching way too many right wingers on YouTube who love the government cheese. Again, let me reiterate. And also watching too much corporate media that's fear mongering about inflation. No, forgiving $10,000 to $20,000 in student loan debt for borrowers is not what's going to cause inflation. It's not what's causing inflation. There's corporate greed associated with why we're seeing inflation. There are supply chain issues. And of course, the Federal Reserve, pumping money into banks and corporations that also had a lot to do with inflation. But you never get the full story. Because at the end of the day, the elite love to point fingers

at ordinary people who are already facing a significant disadvantage with a government that doesn't represent them, with press that doesn't represent them, and an economic system that constantly puts them and their needs in the back burner. That's the reality of the situation. All right, we are out of time for the first hour, which is depressing. But we got to take a break. When we come back, John Iderola will join me for some more news, including some fascinating statistics about what's going down in the housing market. Come right back.

Carol Miller. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.