Jill Biden drags Joe Biden by the shoulders backwards away from reporters at airport after Biden gets stuck with his hand out. Minnesota Democrat Governor Tim Walz defends shutting down schools.
On 8/26/2022, during a briefing, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, “In New York and D.C., mayors have said the federal government isn’t doing enough to help with migrants who are being sent by bus to their cities. Does the administration have plans to do anything more on this?”
JEAN-PIERRE: So, the administration has been in regular touch with Mayor Bowser — clearly, the mayor of D.C. — and Mayor Adams, mayor of New York City … as we have done many times in response to Governor Abbott’s repeated attempts to create chaos — and, really, to create chaos and confusion. That’s what he’s doing at the border, and costing his own constituents over — well over a million dollars. So we will work to manage the consequences of this latest political charade that we see from the governor. And we do take this very seriously and are continuing — going to work with Mayor Bowser and Mayor Adams.
On 8/26/2022, a reporter asked
On 8/26/2022, at a briefing, a reporter asked Bharat Ramamurti, Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council, “Given that the upwards of $1 trillion that they are estimating, that obviously is a number that’s a lot closer to the $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction that you all have been citing. So, I’m just curious: Was the total cost that this plan would amount to — was that a factor when the President and all of you were deciding what the total amount of forgiveness should be? Or was the forgiveness amount — did you get there, sort of, regardless of the cost and then you sort of figured out what the general cost would be after?
RAMAMURTI: Yeah, I want to make totally clear that we don’t think that a trillion dollars is anywhere in the ballpark of what this is going to cost. Number two, you know, yes, the President was quite focused on what the — at least a good estimate of what the cost of this proposal was going to be. It was a big factor in — in his decision. He was looking into and thinking about how that would compare, versus the deficit reduction that he had been able to secure over the last year — last two years, frankly — of his presidency. Remember, in the first year of his presidency, he brought down the deficit by $350 billion. So it was a factor. We provided him with estimates along the lines of what we have provided — provided you, and that did play a role in thinking through how to design the policy.
Reporter: Was there a percentage that he was determined not to cross?
RAMAMURTI: Not that I recall.
Reporter: … you said 75 percent of people taking advantage of the program. If 75 percent of people — if 25 percent of people aren’t taking advantage of the program, do you consider that a flaw in the program? Would you consider the program a success with that number? If you could talk us through those two.
RAMAMURTI: Sure. So, look, we — we have to make an assumption about how many people take advantage of the program in order to provide this preliminary estimate. The reason that we chose 75 percent is that it’s, broadly speaking, in line with the take-up rate of the most similar Education Department initiative that we could find. In other words, there was another Education Department initiative in the past that was supposed to provide targeted debt relief to a set of borrowers who were eligible for it. And roughly 75 percent of the borrowers in that particular program took advantage of it. Now, we are hoping to get as close to 100 percent as possible. But we — you know, for the purposes of putting out a preliminary estimate on this, we had to choose a number. And we felt like 75 percent was the most defensible.
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WH: we take this very seriously, blame Gov Abbott’s political charade; $1T isn’t in the ballpark