On 10/18/2022, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, “And can I follow up on the student loan question that was asked a little earlier, too? The President, yesterday, for those of us who were in the South Court Auditorium, mentioned the concerns about the legal challenges. Is there a message to the people — the tens of millions of Americans — who are signing up for this forgiveness right now, who may be eager to see it actually coming to their — their accounts, who may face the possibility that, at least for a while, there’s a federal judge somewhere who stops it?”
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, the President is — is committed to this, right? This is a policy that he put forward because he wanted to give a little bit of breathing room to … We’re talking about almost 40 million people who are going to get — borrowers who are going to get the — who are going to be able to get the effects of this policy. Twenty-three million people are going to see their debt — their college debt — already wiped away. That matters. That matters …
And the thing to remember and I think the question to ask — or the thing to actually really think about here is what Republicans are trying to do. When you look at these lawsuits across the country, they’re coming from Republicans. And Republicans want to take away this essential need … who need an opportunity to put money down on a house …
Reporter: Thanks, Karine. I wanted to follow up on some of the questions from yesterday about the midterms, and I understand you have the Hatch Act to consider. But what I was curious is: Even though we’re seeing the President out there, he’s been doing these smaller events with smaller audiences; he’s been doing closed-door fundraisers with no photographers. Why aren’t we seeing big campaign rallies? Or is anything on the schedule with the election less than three weeks away? MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Look, I can’t answer that question from here. It is an … the President has been on the road. He will continue to be on the road. I just can’t say more than that. You have seen him. He was in Portland, Oregon, doing events. He was in California doing events. And he was in Colorado doing events. I will say that they were all pretty well attended. But I’ll leave it there.
Reporter: But can I also just follow up? He has been doing less travel than, for example, we saw President Obama do in the first — in October of 2010. Can you give anything about the schedule, anything that may be coming up, any he stops he may be doing?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Well, we announced he’s — as you know, he’s going to go to Pennsylvania on Thursday. He’s going to go to Florida on November 1st. There will be more travel to come. Certainly not going to get ahead of — of any announcements from here. But again, the President, as you know, and we’ve said this many times before, he enjoys getting out there; he enjoys talking to …
Reporter: Yesterday, Secretary Cardona said the administration is working on ways to forgive the privately held student loans. Can you say how confident you are that that will happen and whether borrowers can expect an announcement on that before they have to resume payments?
MS. Jean-Pierre: I’m going to leave that to Department of Education. Like you said, Secretary Cardona is working on that, so we don’t have anything to share at this time. Clearly, it is a priority and something that is an important — important for this administration to make sure that private borrowers are — also have an opportunity here.
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40 million people need “really think about”: Republicans want to take away your house down payment. Why smaller audiences? WH: pretty well attended!