Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to President Biden, said on Sunday that the administration is going to win the legal battle over student debt relief after a federal judge struck down the administration’s initiative earlier this week.
Texas district judge Mark Pittman on Friday struck down the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness initiative, saying that the proposed program is “an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power.”
During Dunn’s appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” moderator Margaret Brennan noted that millions of young voters cast ballots for Democrats in last week’s midterm elections due to the expectation of their loans being forgiven.
Dunn said the administration fully expected to prevail, as the law is on its side.
“And make no mistake about it … President Biden made this commitment to people in America. It’s not just young people. It’s also people of every age,” Dunn told Brennan.
“We believe we’re going to prevail in court. And at that point, we will swiftly move to make sure that the over 26 million people at this point who have — whose information this administration has — that we’ll move swiftly for loan forgiveness,” Dunn added.
The lawsuit against the Biden administration was filed last month by conservative advocacy group the Job Creators Network Foundation, on behalf of one borrower who is ineligible for the relief program and another who is not eligible for the full $20,000.
The Biden administration’s student debt relief initiative would include $10,000 in loan forgiveness for borrowers who make less than $125,000 annually and up to $20,00 for Pell Grant recipients.