As they made their rounds on this week's Sunday shows, President Joe Biden's cabinet members displayed how truly tone deaf this administration really is.
Leah highlighted Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm's remarks on "Fox News Sunday," who casually mentioned lower-income Americans can just lower costs by weatherizing their homes. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona appeared on both CBS' "Face the Nation" and NBC's "Meet the Press," raising eyebrows for his remarks on the former program when it comes to his response as to why families are fleeing public school in Democrat-run cities.
Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has no idea why tens of thousands of families have fled public schools in Democrat-run cities across the country. pic.twitter.com/J30J5buTPC
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 21, 2022
Towards the end of a segment where Sec. Cardona wasn't doing very well to begin with when it came to a lack of substantive or satisfactory answers, host Margaret Brennan brought up how the Los Angeles School District superintendent told them that there "are roughly 10 to 20,000 children who are just simply missing."
As Madeline covered earlier this month, nearly 50,000 students in the district were reported as absent on the first day of school on August 15, with those rates having skyrocketed during the pandemic. Last year's rates were even worse.
Guy highlighted back in May how 1.2 million students have dropped out of public schools since 2020, citing a report from The New York Times, though that report was lacking its own understanding as to how it was attributed to the pandemic. Many students have gone on to attending private schools.
While Sec. Cardona acknowledged that "it's a concern," including "in other parts of our country, in particular urban centers where we know the pandemic impacted urban centers, where their density is--is higher," he still tried to stick to what the administration supposedly had to be proud of. This includes being proud of "the work where districts are now hiring folks to work as community liaisons, family liaisons, where they're knocking on doors, finding students, bringing them back into the classroom, re-engaging them."
The secretary even touted the American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law of March last year, which worsened inflation. Of course that's not why Cardona mentioned the law, though, which he also touted on NBC. "I'm proud to see that in different parts of our country, we see districts that are really focusing resources, using the American Rescue Plan dollars to find those families and more importantly, give them the support that they need," he mentioned on CBS.
Cardona made headlines in other ways, as on both programs he was asked about teacher shortages and the Biden administration's upcoming decision to be made on whether to forgive student loan debt. To do so would shift the burden onto American taxpayers, including those who did not take out such loans or who had already paid them back.
When asked about student loan debt forgiveness on "Meet the Press," Cardona offered that "from day one, we've been really focused on making sure we're protecting our students and our borrowers, $32 billion in debt forgiveness from day one. We know August 31st is a date that many people are waiting to hear something from. We've been talking daily about this. And I can tell you that American people will hear within the next week or so from the president and the department."
WATCH: The federal student loan moratorium is scheduled to end Aug. 31. Education @SecCardona says Americans can expect to hear an update on the Biden administration's plans in the next week or so.
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 21, 2022
"We know August 31 is a date many people are waiting to hear something from." pic.twitter.com/cyYYRkApbh
As a recent CNBC/Momentive poll revealed, 59 percent of Americans are considered that student debt loan forgiveness could make inflation worse. A write-up from Momentive noted that the "sentiment remains true across most demographic groups."
Just 11 percent actually believe that all student loan debts will be forgiven. Rather a plurality, at 30 percent, expect student loan payments to resume on September 1, while 29 percent believe some individuals' loans will be forgiven, and 26 percent believe loan payments will once more be passed. The survey was conducted August 4-15, with 5,142 adults.
August 31 is now a little over a week away from now, when that promised announcement is supposed to come by.
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