On Friday, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Fox News to discuss the ongoing Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
During his time on the show, Crenshaw was asked about a recent exchange between 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and a voter who confronted the candidate over her student debt cancellation policy proposal.
The exchange between the Warren and the male voter came during a campaign stop in Grimes, Iowa, earlier this week. Co-host Steve Doocey first played the clip for Crenshaw.
MAN: I just want to ask one question. My daughter’s getting out of school. I saved all my money. She doesn’t have any student loans.
WARREN: God bless you.
MAN: Am I going to get my money back?
WARREN: Of course not.
MAN: So, you’re gonna pay for people who didn’t save any money, and those of us who did the right thing get screwed?
WARREN: No, it’s not anybody got screwed.
MAN: Of course we did. My buddy had fun, bought a car, went on vacations. I saved my money. He made more than I did. I worked a double [shift to] make the extra money.
Doocey then asked Rep. Crenshaw what he thought of the exchange, and Crenshaw replied:
He’s asking the question that a lot of Americans would like to ask Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, and everybody who’s offering to cancel student debt. It’s a false sense of compassion that they’re offering. They always cloak their policies in compassion, but it’s a lie. This isn’t fair. It’s not fair to take from other people and give to someone else just because you want their votes. That’s the definition of buying votes.
Doocey interjected: “Is that what’s happening?”
Crenshaw responded: “Oh, it absolutely is. If you look to the pandering that these Democratic candidates do, it’s always about getting votes. We’re going to give you something, in return, we want your votes, we want your support – and that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Crenshaw continued:
But no, you cannot take the taxes away from people who have paid off their student loans, or people who didn’t get to go to college and maybe got a vocational training certificate instead, working hard – you want to take their tax money and pay off somebody else’s investment? Because this isn’t just a loan. It’s an investment in your future, and it was your choice to do it, and you need to pay that back.
Under the “student loan debt” section of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s official campaign website, it states in part:
When I am president … I’ll direct the Secretary of Education to use their authority to begin to compromise and modify federal student loans consistent with my plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for 95% of student loan borrowers (about 42 million people).
On Sen. Bernie Sanders’ official campaign website, it states that as president: “[Sanders will] cancel the entire $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt for the 45 million borrowers who are weighed down by the crushing burden of student debt. This will save around $3,000 a year for the average student loan borrower.”