- Jen Psaki on Thursday dodged a question about the 2022 election consequences of student debt.
- Psaki cited strong economic recovery and $15 billion in student loans that Biden's already canceled.
- "If Congress sends him a bill to cancel $10,000 in student debt, he'd be happy to sign that into law," Psaki said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki dodged a question on Thursday about whether President Joe Biden could hurt the Democratic Party's chances in the 2022 midterms by not canceling more student debt.
Federal student loan payments, which have been paused for nearly two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, are set to restart in May 2022. Numerous Democratic lawmakers have pressed the Biden administration to extend the pause, and 85 of them sent a letter to Biden on Wednesday, asking for a memo with more answers on the administration's legal authority for broader student debt cancellations.
"Is the president worried at all about slapping millions of student borrowers with their monthly obligations of hundreds or thousands of dollars toward their student loan payments several months ahead of an election cycle when he's then going to run around to those same college-educated voters and ask them to vote for Democrats in November?" a reporter asked in Thursday's briefing.
"First, no one has been required to pay a single dime of federal student loans since the president took office," Psaki replied, echoing similar comments she'd made during Wednesday's briefing. "I'm not sure there's another time in history where that has been the case in the first year of a presidency."
Psaki went on to say: "At the same time, our economy is seeing one of the strongest recoveries in history. And the president has also taken historic steps to provide relief. He's canceled $15 billion of student loans during his first year in office. Obviously, as we get closer to the timeline in May we will have to make a decision about what's next and we've obviously been clear about what we're preparing for. But the president's going to make these decisions based on what we're seeing in economic data and what we feel is certainly needed at the time."
The reporter then asked about people wondering why some borrowers and not others have gotten loans canceled. The Biden administration has previously canceled $15 billion in debt from 675,000 borrowers because of their eligibility for public service loan forgiveness or total and permanent disability.
"If Congress sends him a bill to cancel $10,000 in student debt, he'd be happy to sign that into law," Psaki said.
This is not the first time Biden's administration has ducked questions on broad student debt relief. While Biden promised during his campaign to approve $10,000 in student debt for every federal borrower, he has been largely silent on that promise ever since. During his first solo press conference of 2022, Biden ignored a question on whether he plans to fulfill that promise.
And on Wednesday, following the letter form 85 Democratic lawmakers, Psaki once again touted the relief the administration has already provided for the 43 million federal student-loan borrowers and said Biden would sign a bill passed by Congress for any additional broad relief.
It's unclear when, or if, Biden will enact broad student-loan forgiveness, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona made clear during a Thursday speech that that form of relief is not on the department's list of priorities to tackle college affordability.