London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Bernie Sanders says Republicans complaining about student debt forgiveness didn't complain when Donald Trump declared bankruptcy 6 times

Bernie Sanders says Republicans complaining about student debt forgiveness didn't complain when Donald Trump declared bankruptcy 6 times

It's the war of loan forgiveness, as Republicans and Democrats continue to go back and forth over President Joe Biden's decision to relieve student debt.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders weighed in on Friday with a typically fiery response.

"I hear Republicans complaining about $20,000 in student debt forgiveness. Funny, I didn't hear those complaints when Trump declared bankruptcy 6 times & had $287 million in loans forgiven by big banks," Sanders tweeted. "The GOP l-o-v-e-s socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the rest."

On Wednesday, Biden announced up to $20,000 in student-loan forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients making under $125,000 a year, along with up to $10,000 in relief for other federal borrowers under the same income cap. As expected, Republican lawmakers were quick to slam the announcement, with many arguing the broad forgiveness is costly and unfair to taxpayers.

It's a criticism that Biden himself was quick to rebuke, questioning the fairness of taxpayers subsidizing tax breaks for multi-billion dollar companies and pointing out the GOP lawmakers who received business loan forgiveness during the pandemic.

The Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton was correct to assert in 2016 that Donald Trump had "taken business bankruptcies six times." Trump had said it happened four times, and told the Post that he was tallying the first three bankruptcies as one. The New York Times found in a 2020 analysis of his tax returns that Trump had around $287 million in debt forgiven.

Sanders is not the first Democrat to scrutinize GOP pushback on Biden's relief. After Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the president's student-loan forgiveness "astonishingly unfair," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was quick to respond by noting that when McConnell graduated from University of Louisville, he only paid $330 in annual tuition.

"Senator McConnell graduated from a school that cost $330 a year," Warren wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "Today it costs over $12,000. McConnell has done nothing to fix it — and is irate that the President is stepping up to help millions of working Americans drowning in debt. He can spare us the lectures on fairness."

The White House itself has also taken to Twitter to call out some Republican lawmakers by name — those who have complained about Biden's relief while also having gotten their Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans forgiven. While GOP Sen. Marco Rubio wrote in a Friday op-ed that PPP loans and student loans are not comparable, National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti said "we absolutely think it's a fair comparison."

The Education Department is set to announce further details on Biden's relief plans in the coming weeks, and an application for the loan forgiveness is set to become live in early October.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×