On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Washington Post Associate Editor and MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart responded to arguments that Democrats have no room to criticize President Donald Trump on executive power after what President Joe Biden did on student loans by saying that with Trump and Elon Musk, “you have an unelected person, who also happens to be the wealthiest person in the world, and also the wealthiest person in the world who owns a huge social media megaphone, and is able to manipulate the information that the people on that huge platform receive.” And Biden “pushed the limits of executive action,” but “in order to help people, not to destroy the government that the American people depend on for a whole host of things.”
Co-host Geoff Bennett said that he has “heard from Republicans this past week, that Democrats can’t, in good faith, criticize Donald Trump, when Joe Biden tried to, unilaterally, without Congress, waive $400 billion worth of student loan debt. And when the Supreme Court said, no, you can’t do that, he basically shrugged and then tried to do it via a piecemeal approach.”
Capehart responded, “This is like comparing apples and cannonballs. What we’re seeing coming from the Trump administration is executive orders uprooting and upending the federal government. And what makes this all the more galling and terrifying for a lot of people is that he has delegated a lot of power to someone who was elected to no office, to someone who was not confirmed by the Senate. He is accountable to no one, except for maybe President Trump. And President Trump has already said, well, he will only do things that we want him to do. Well, so far, Elon Musk is doing everything that Donald Trump wants to do. That is what is so terrifying about this moment, is that you have an unelected person, who also happens to be the wealthiest person in the world, and also the wealthiest person in the world who owns a huge social media megaphone, and is able to manipulate the information that the people on that huge platform receive.”
Capehart continued, “And as we’re trying to compare President Biden’s executive order on student loans and what Donald Trump is doing, Donald Trump is destroying. President Biden signed an executive order and, yeah, pushed the limits of executive action, but to the benefit of people who were drowning in student debt. He did it in order to help people, not to destroy the government that the American people depend on for a whole host of things.”
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