Biden's student loan forgiveness plan,
it's already become a hot issue on the trail.
And we saw earlier in the program that there's
a divide even within the Democratic Party.
>> For that amount of money, you could fund free pre-K for every three and
four year old for 10 years.
You do a lot more good for poor people, communities of color, and
the underprivileged by doing pre-K.
You could forgive all medical debt, which unlike student debt,
is not freely entered into.
So the Democrats, I'm a progressive, I want to help folks, but
I think this is terrible policy.
What is my party doing with this?
They're disadvantaging, I think they're not helping the people that were here to
help, which is poor people and underprivileged communities.
>> Yes, Paul, we all believe that you're a warrior for
universal pre-K for child care.
For all the things that you said idly by and allowed Senator Joe Manchin
to just destroy in Biden's build back better agenda,
you didn't seem to have much of a problem with that.
Just business as usual, senate parliamentarians, super important.
Legislative filibuster, super important.
I mean, I would want these programs, but what could we do?
And now that there is a modest plan in place to forgive a modest
amount of student loan debt per federal student loan borrower,
you have this man who provides lip service for
the corporate elite in this country, basically saying, well, this is wrong.
It's really gonna hurt the Democratic Party, and
of course, he fell back on the same ridiculous talking point about
how making people's lives materially better somehow is bad politics.
Let's watch.
>> I think this is terrible politics that we saw,
Tim Ryan is in a tough race in a tough state and he can't stand this idea.
Senator Warren is all for it,
she's not exactly from a swing state in Massachusetts.
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada got a tough race, she doesn't like this.
Michael Bennet, the senator from Colorado, he doesn't like this, good Democrats.
Charissa David's one of the more impressive Democrats,
the only Democrat in congress from Kansas, she doesn't like it.
So what is my party doing with this?
>> I don't know Cenk, I mean,
if we're talking about Democrats facing a tough race in their congressional seats,
maybe they need to rethink their economic policies.
Maybe they need to rethink whether it makes sense
to make people's lives materially better because it turns out that's actually
a pretty popular idea among the electorate.
>> Yeah, so I love doing this show because we get to tell you guys
what actually happens.
So that entire CNN segment was a mirage, it was meant to trick you.
So every politician that he named is a corporate Democrat
that takes massive amounts of money from lobbyists.
Okay, so he says, and Paul Begala is himself a massive corporate Democrat.
Okay, so now he does not say where he's getting paid, okay?
As far as we've seen, we tried to find it, but Paul Begala keeps that under his vest.
And so and CNN never clarifies who's paying Paul Begala.
Okay, so it is very, very, very likely if you know anything about Washington, he's
getting paid by massive business interests to do propaganda on their behalf.
And that's why he goes on television, God you can't help the average American.
No, you can't do anything that hurts corporates.
No, you can't do that, bad policy, bad policy.
Then he names a whole bunch of other corporate Democrats who take money from
campaign contributions from the same exact donors.
And that makes it seem as if there's a giant portion of the Democratic Party
who's united against this bad policy and
it's gonna get democrats to lose their elections.
No, it's not.
No, they're all kissing corporate ass to try to raise money to win their elections.
But is it an unpopular issue?
No, you didn't quote any polls, you didn't talk about the voters,
you just said those Democrats names as if that settles the issue.
Sherrice David is one of the biggest corporate Democrats you'll ever see in
your life.
Okay, go back to the first clip.
He says, I'm a progressive, are you?
>> Are you?
>> Are you, because you attacked the progressive side
of the Democratic Party in 100% of your appearances?
And then when it's convenient for you to pretend you're progressive,
all of a sudden in the middle of your corporate talking point, you throw out
there I'm the progressive, but every other time you're attacking progressives.
You see, it's lie layered on top of lie, layered on top of lie, but I got more.
Pre-K, we can use the money to do a pre-K or retired medical debt.
Well, Paul, have you ever lobbied for that?
Have you ever argued for that?
If we brought that to a vote now, my guess is you would go right back on CNN and go,
we can't do pre-K, I mean, I'd love to, but inflation, I can't do it.
Medical debt, those people have those debts, they had those debts,
we can't do those things.
We should've done paid family leave and he'll make up another thing, etc.
It's always the same carousel goes round, and round, and round of things and
say we shouldn't do to help the average American.
And then he said twice there, and that's why the corporate folks who hired
him sent him out like a dog, just go out there and go, what's my party doing?
That's what's my party doing?
What are they doing?
No, Democrats are always wrong, if they disagree with the corporate position,
God bless the Republicans.
Paul Begala was supposed to be one of the big fighters in the Democratic Party,
a lot have to change.
>> Fighter for what?
Fighter for what?
Fighter for the status quo, fighter for the financial services industry,
fighter for Wall Street?
I mean, he was working over at Wall Street as a consultant until 2008 during
that economic collapse.
But let me just jump in and make a point about why it is that we're now on the,
I don't know how many days this has been going on, five days.
Fifth day of corporatists, both on the left and the right, okay,
whining about modest debt forgiveness for student loan borrowers, modest.
Let's be abundantly clear about that.
Okay, $10,000 for those who took out federal loans, but
did not need Pell Grants during their education and made up to 20,000 for
those who did need Pell Grants during their higher education.
That is to put that up against the bailouts the US taxpayers
have handed over to Wall Street after they destroyed our economy.
The amount that we subsidize gas and oil companies,
the amount we use to fund the research and
development of pharmaceutical drugs which does that end up really benefiting us in
the future when we get price gouged by the same pharmaceutical companies.
I mean, when you look at the amount of theft by these corporate
goons honestly who see our tax dollars as their entitlement.
I mean,
to make this student loan forgiveness thing a big deal blows my mind.
But there is a financial motive behind it as well,
jink right because there are loan servicers who service those federal loans.
They make money off of that, they're probably fury that their profit is going
to be maybe hurt a tiny bit as a result of this debt forgiveness.
And it goes on and on.
But I wanna make a point about how I'm not interested, I'm sorry.
I'm not interested in hearing anyone who has a career in
television which Paul Begala does as a contributor on CNN.
Anyone who is as old as Begala is, he's in his sixties and this is not
an age is something, I mentioned his age because when he went to school,
he got his undergrad and his JD at the University of Texas at Austin.
Let's talk about how much tuition and
fees were when he entered college in the year 1980.
In the 1979-1980 academic year, the average annual cost of tuition and
fees at public four year institutions was $738.
If you look at the University of Texas around that time,
it was close to about $200 per semester, okay?
Between 1980 and 2020, the average price of tuition fees, and room and
board for an undergraduate degree increased 169% according to a recent
report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the workforce.
In fact, he teaches over at Georgetown, maybe Paul Begala needs
to take a little trip over to their center on education and the workforce, maybe
get a little educated on what the reality is for student loan borrowers today.
And finally, we should talk a little bit about what the tuition is at
the University of Texas at Austin,
the same institution he went to, what's the tuition today?
The tuition and fees have increased 23.75% for
the last 10 years where the 2022 tuition and fees are $40,996.
The undergraduate tuition and fees have been raised from
33,128 in 2012 to 40,996 in 2022.
The graduate school tuition and
fees have also increased from $20,790
in 2012 to $22,944 in 2022.
So I give you all that because whatever cute little story we hear
about politicians or political pundits on cable news, whatever,
cutesy little, I worked hard and I paid my loans on my own.
Well, you were dealing with a completely different animal and tuition not only
kept up with inflation, it far surpassed inflation in this country and
that is why we're dealing with the problem we're dealing with today.
>> Two more fun things.
So the democrats put out of this talking point about how this mainly goes to people
that are middle class and poor, right, the debt relief does.
Because the Republicans are all goes, it's going to the rich.
The Republicans and Paul Begala, every corporate Democrat,
every corrupt Democrat is going out there, it's going to the richest of the rich.
And politifact said no, the Democratic talking point is not as
accurate as the study pointed out by Republicans.
Wow, okay, and it was a Warden study.
Okay, so it turns out the Warden study shows that 75% of
the debt relief is going to people making under $82,400.
>> It's means tested, it means tested, did everyone forget?
Did everyone forget that It's a means tested program?
That if you're making six figures or $125,000 a year,
you don't qualify for any forgiveness, do not realize that.
Why is everyone pretending like we're stupid and
we don't know about that portion of this deal?
>> Yeah, and that's because everyone, and that leads into my second point, Anna.
Everyone in charge hates this and because it helps the average American, and
it helps people making under $82,000 a year.
None of them make $182,000 a year, they're all making the millions.
So they're like, they view this as their taxpayer money of the rich, the beloved
rich going to someone who's middle class, building a ladder up to the upper class.
They don't want that, so lo and behold,
the right wing media and corporate media agree.
Now this is the point that Anna makes all the time,
when it's culture war issues, they all disagree and
they fight like crazy, transgender and racial and this and that right?
But when it's an economic issue all of a sudden tucker Carlson agrees with
Anderson cooper who agrees with Joy Reid and they all hate it.
They hate it if you start giving to the average.
So what does CNN do they rush out paul Begala and I'm a progressive but
I don't know what my party's doing helping the average man.
We should be helping corporate interests.
Right? Talking cross over to you at Fox News.
Fox is what are they doing?
I can't believe this.
Hey look at that.
It turns out all the cable news agrees completely, they hate you and
they want all the money to go to the rich.
That's because they are the rich