Bill Maher has really leaned into his boomer characteristics.
And he apparently has forgotten that he's incredibly wealthy,
incredibly privileged and paid almost nothing for his college education.
Which is why it makes it infuriating that he's so against any student loan relief
for students who have borrowed students, who are in debt.
In a recent episode of his show, he said, quote,
President Biden is under enormous pressure,
speaking of college kids to come up with a plan now to relieve college debt.
A lot of people are saying this is a loser issue.
I'll give you some brief numbers here for why that is.
13% of Americans have college debt, federal college debt.
So that's not a lot of people you're working to.
So his argument here is,
it's only 13% of Americans who are drowning in student loan debt.
What's the big deal?
And that's the thing with data, that's the thing with numbers.
You can usually, skew them in a way that fits whatever narrative that you're
trying to push out there.
But I looked into the numbers, I was curious about the reality.
And since there's still plenty of older people who got to take
advantage of free college or low tuition costs,
people like Bill Maher, those people are still alive.
They didn't necessarily have to borrow or if they did they've paid it off because it
wasn't an insane amount that would keep them in debt for the rest of their lives.
He paid $3,000 in tuition for Cornell and
he's telling us what the situation is with student loan debt, okay, sit down.
43 million, 43 million Americans have student loan debt.
That's one in eight Americans.
So yes, 13%, turns out 13% is a lot of Americans, okay.
But now, let's go a little deeper than that.
So when you're looking at the entire population and
specific demographics of voters, think about who Democrats tend to rely on,
they tend to rely on young people to vote for them.
Am I wrong about that Jenk?
That the Democratic party leans heavily or relies heavily on young voters to
support them, to vote for them, to get out the vote, to canvas for them,
to do all the dirty work, all the hard work.
Which they then probably regret because Democrats never helped them out or
carry out their own campaign promises.
I just wanna make sure I'm correct about that.
Am I right Jenk?
>> You're correct.
>> Okay, great.
So let me continue breaking it down for you.
Those ages 25 to34 are the most likely to hold student loan debt,
but the greatest amount is owed by those 35 to49.
More than 600 billion, federal data shows.
Fascinating, so yeah, why don't you give them the middle finger and
tell them to buzz off knowing full well that that's the demographic
you rely on to get reelected, that Democrats rely on to get elected.
And then I wanna just break it down even further.
Let's take a look at this graph.
If you're 24 or younger,
7.5 million of you have had to borrow to go to college and
that means that there is $113.7 billion in out
standing student loan debt for those 24 and younger.
And then, I mean, just look at the numbers 25 to 34 that's 14.9
million Americans who owe $500 billion dollars in student loan debt.
35 to 46 year olds, that's 14.3 million Americans and
they owe 613 billion in student loans.
But hey, let's minimize it and just like throw out a number that helps to buttress
or helps to bolster whatever garbage point he's trying to make as someone again
who got to take advantage of a system that didn't screw you.
A system that had available affordable college for everyone, including public
universities by the way, they charged no tuition at one point in this country.
>> Yeah.
I'm so sick of these rich people sitting around with
their little circle jerks about [SOUND].
The real problem is all these entitled people who are living under
this insane system that we didn't have to deal with, but
they need to just shove it and accept it.
That's what he's basically saying.
So there's two different issues here.
One is the politics and the other is how unbearable Bill Maher and Paul Begara is.
So if you thought Maher was about and he is and we got more on that.
Wait till you hear Begala talking about how he's with the machinists, he's
constantly with the middle class, [LAUGH] Paul Begara is Democratic consultant,
Paul Begara, hanging out with machinists all the time of course you are.
But real quick on the politics and I've covered most of it, but I just wanna give
you context here, remember Biden won by about 7 million votes on the overall
the popular vote, but in the Electoral College he won the three swing states,
he needed to win by only 43,000 votes.
43 million people have student debt.
You think that might help you to win if all you cared about was the politics,
because they mainly made a point about how Democrats suck at politics.
I can't believe they're gonna help these 43 million people.
Well, that would be 43 million more than they've helped today.
Okay, so they didn't do any of their promises.
They didn't increase wages, they didn't give you paid family, they didn't give you
a child tax credit, they didn't give you any of the things, they didn't give you
voting rights, they didn't give you any of the things that they promised.
So helping 43 million Americans might actually be a really,
really smart political idea, but so why are Begala and
Bill Maher theoretically on the left against it?
Well, Bill Maher has become a total right winger,
everything he says, not everything to be fair, because we are fair and
what a couple of times he makes sense, we go, look at that, Bill Maher making sense.
How's that for an exception?
But the rule is, you will just see him regurgitate right wing talking points, so
that's what he's doing here.
And they all talk the entire segment about the Democrats are so
bad at framing, they're so elitist.
No, the point of this segment was to protect bankers,
it's the bankers that are making money by packaging those loans,
even if they don't have the loans, even if it's not their loans.
They package them, they turn them into derivatives and
then they gamble on them and they make a ton of money.
So this segment on HBO was meant to trick you into thinking that it was for
the middle class when in fact it was helping the bankers do a robbery.
So Bill Maher rebel, wow, you're so brave these days helping the super rich and
the super powerful, Begala that's his job.
Now, with Begala it's definitely his job and I love how Maher was just like,
Begala, I mean you were so successful as a Democratic strategist and all that.
>> Really?
When? >> Yeah, super successful.
Okay, so let me give you just quickly his quote,
Paul Begara's quote from when he was on the show.
So, this is graphic nine.
We Democrats have a lab, two labs actually, secret labs, one in Berkeley and
one in Brooklyn where we come up with ideas to piss off the working class and
it's working and it's working wonderfully.
Somehow in my lifetime, the Democrats have gone from being the party of the factory
floor to being the party of the factory lounge, I'm sorry, faculty lounge.
So I'll explain it to you Begala, because you're part of that.
You're a huge part of that, okay?
It's called neoliberalism.
It's something that was pushed on to the American people beginning in the 1970s,
something that was expanded under Clinton's administration in the 1990s, and
you know what we get?
We get record income inequality, record wealth inequality, okay.
That's not because of the faculty lounges,
which by the way have their own problems where they're constantly obsessed with
nonstop speech policing which I do think is a problem for the Democratic Party.
But at the end of the day, the Democratic Party needs to take responsibility for
their failures because they are failures.
They have turned their backs on the workers, okay.
They have outsourced jobs, they have empowered corporations to outsource jobs.
I mean, you wanna sit here and
pretend you're a man of the people while you have provided cover for
all the neoliberal Democrats who have helped to destroy this country.
How about you shut up and sit down, you're nothing more than a goddamn shill for
a system that has failed the American people, period.
Not interested in hearing about what Paul Begara has to say.
>> Hey. >> Please.
>> So this segment should have been labeled, the dishonest and the dumbass.
So Begala is the dishonest one and Bill Maher is a dumbass.
And I say that because Bill Maher has no financial incentive in this,
he's not a banker etc, and he says stupid things like, a lot of people are saying,
that was the first quote we read you, he says a lot of people are saying this.
Really, Bill, who's saying it?
All your right wing friends, you dumbass, okay?
All of your incredibly rich friends,
do declare are we going to pay for the student debt of the paupers?
Of the middle class?
Everybody is saying that it's a bad idea bill, go tell everyone on HBO,
it's a bad idea.
Hey, now let's turn to the dishonest on Paul Begara.
He makes it sound like, he's a man of the people and that he's, and
Bill Maher said he's the one that helps Democrats win.
Wait, he was a giant advisor to Hillary Clinton.
Did she win?
No, she lost her moron.
They lost the Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is one of the dumbest people who's ever been in public office or
in the public eye at all.
And that idiot Paul Begara helped to lose to him.
He's like, hella good, that's definitely the right candidate who we got this,
we're definitely gonna win.
You lost to Trump, you should run, forever live in shame and a cave somewhere.
Instead he comes out and HBO is like, Paul Begara genius, genius Paul Begara.
Okay, but hey HBO, I'd like to know, I don't know is,
Paul Begara a lobbyist because he sounds like a lobbyist.
Who does he work for?
Now that's a literal question, because if he's a lobbyist for
the guys that are profiting off of not canceling student debt and you didn't tell
your audience that, because he's saying things that are absurd.
So here I'll give you one of the quotes but
there's everything he said was over the top idiotic.
Again, for Begala though it's not idiotic, he's doing it on purpose.
Yeah, so here's the machinist one that I love, graphic 10.
He said I spent Wednesday last week in Chicago with the machinists union,
hung out with the machinists all day.
Great guys, not one of them came up to me and said G I really hope you take my tax
dollars and pay off the debt of someone who went to Stanford but
Biden is under enormous pressure.
Okay, wait a minute, Begala, you're a creature of Washington.
You're a lobbyist, a consultant, At best a pundit, you're hanging out with
machine all day, you hang out with the machines one day because of the union and
they were probably paying you, like, I have to go hang out with the middle class.
Where's my check?
Am I getting paid properly for this?
Show me you hang out with machinists all the time.
Come on, come on, are you kidding me, you're a joke.
And look at how he frames it, he frames it perfectly Republican.
The machinists are helping the guy who went to Stanford.
Is that where the majority of the student debt is, kids who went to Stanford?
No, most of those guys all ready paid it off because they were all ready
incredibly wealthy.
No, this goes to people who went to community colleges,
went to public colleges, the great majority of it, right?
But did they tell you that?
No they framed it as if you're only helping the rich and the elite,
when in reality they're helping the biggest bankers in the country.
Who does Paul Begara work for?
And is HBO or Bill Maher ever going to disclose it?
Because that segment was nothing but outrageous lies meant to trick you into
helping bankers instead of the middle class.