A father confronted Elizabeth Warren about her plan to forgive student loan debt in a tense face-to-face conversation, asserting that those who paid for college tuition themselves would get “screwed” under her proposal.
He spoke to the Massachusetts Democratic senator in a photo line after a presidential campaign town hall event in Grimes, Iowa, on Monday.
“I just wanted to ask one question. My daughter is getting out of school. I’ve saved all my money. She doesn’t have any student loans. Am I going to get my money back?” the man in an embroidered leather jacket asked Warren.
“Of course not,” the Massachusetts senator, 70, responded.
“So you’re going to pay for people who didn’t save any money and those of us who did the right thing get screwed,” he said.
Warren has staked her campaign on a plethora of bold left-wing policy proposals, giving her campaign the rallying cry, “I have a plan for that.” One of her plans calls for eliminating student loan debt of up to $50,000 for households making under $100,000, which would apply to about 95% of borrowers and wipe out student loan debt entirely for 75% of borrowers. Last week, Warren promised to implement her plan through executive action, bypassing Congress.
During the confrontation Monday, Warren protested, communicating that no one would get “screwed.”
“Of course we did. My buddy had fun, bought a car, went on vacations. I saved my money,” he said. “He made more than I did. But I worked a double shift, worked extra — my daughter worked since she was 10. So, you’re laughing.”
“No, I’m not,” Warren said.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what you’re doing,” he said. “We did the right thing, and we get screwed,” he added, before walking away from the photo line without a photo.
“I appreciate your time,” Warren said.
Warren was long seen as a more palatable left-wing alternative to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and saw a bump in Democratic presidential primary polls in late summer and early fall of 2019. But she has faded as Sanders regained popularity and sits in third place in the RealClearPolitics average of national primary polls with 14.8% support, while Sanders has 22% and former Vice President Joe Biden has 28.7%.
The Massachusetts senator had a fiery confrontation with Sanders in a “hot mic” moment after a Democratic presidential debate last week. She had alleged that Sanders told her in a private 2018 conversation that he did not think a woman could win the presidency in 2020, but Sanders denied making that statement. Although Warren said she wanted to move on from the dispute, she told Sanders after the debate, “I think you just called me a liar on national TV.”
