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Tag: Bidens
Biden’s latest campaign strategy: Get under Trump’s skin
As President Joe Biden works to defeat Donald Trump, he’s increasingly focused on another goal he thinks will help him achieve that: getting under his skin.
In recent weeks, both in private and public settings, Biden has ramped up personal, biting and often sarcastic broadsides against his Republican opponent, targeting his financial challenges, his campaign tempo and even his weight.
It’s a strategy largely driven by Biden himself, according to multiple aides and advisers familiar with the approach.
“This is him and we’re following his lead,” one Biden aide said. “There’s just something about Joe Biden that gets under Donald Trump’s skin more than anybody, and I think Joe Biden knows that.”
At a star-studded fundraiser that brought in $26 million for his campaign Thursday evening, Biden was asked what was at stake in the 2024 election. After giving an answer criticizing Trump’s positions broadly, he concluded: “All the things he’s doing are so old … a little old and out of shape.”
Biden also took a jab at the former president’s physical stamina while telling a story recounting a brief conversation they had about golf at the White House shortly after Trump’s election.
“I told him this once before when he came into the Oval before he was sworn in. I said, ‘I’ll give you three strokes, but you carry your own bag,’” Biden said to laughs.
The president came up with those jokes on his own, according to two aides and a senior adviser, who pointed out that Biden is often using similar quips in internal staff meetings.
“He comes up with these off the cuff,” one of the aides said.
Earlier this month, the president also directly addressed Trump’s legal woes and financial issues, saying “the other day a defeated man” who was “crushed by debt” had approached him.
“I had to say, ‘I’m sorry Donald, I can’t help you,’” Biden told a group of donors in Houston last week.
His campaign has even labeled Trump as “Broke Don.”
Biden’s team thinks those kinds of comments and jokes might resonate with voters for two reasons: because it’s “rooted,” one aide said, in who Biden is at his core and because it wouldn’t work as well if it didn’t have some authenticity to it.
While contrasting their policy positions is important to the president, an adviser said Biden is “totally the driver” of presenting a “stark” character difference with Trump as well.
The most natural place to do that is on the campaign trail, aides say, which has already been on clear display in recent weeks.
Biden has regularly been referring to Trump as a “loser,” underscoring the fact that the lost the 2020 election in both private fundraisers and in on-camera remarks at campaign field office openings.
Aides and advisers only expect to this to continue in the coming months as the campaign enters full general election mode.
“He has Donald Trump read like a book and it’s fun to watch,” a Biden aide said.
Asked for a response to the president’s quips, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung criticized Biden for hosting a fundraiser with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton while Trump attended the wake Thursday for slain New York police officer Jonathan Diller.
“President Trump honored the life and legacy of Officer Diller and paid respects to his family, friends, and the NYPD for their terrible loss,” Cheung said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the Three Stooges —Biden, Obama, and Clinton — were at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors.”
In smaller meetings with senior staff, Biden will make jokes about Trump that then get launched into larger digital content that the re-election effort uses on various social media platforms.
The most notable manifestation of that has been leaning into the “Dark Brandon” meme, which features a photo of Biden with red lasers shooting out of his eyes.
Biden himself has fully embraced the image that originated in right-wing circles, in an attempt to mock the conspiracy theories that bore it.
At the end of the New York City fundraising event with Obama and Clinton, the trio did their best impressions of Biden by donning his infamous aviator sunglasses.
Before leaving the stage, Biden quipped: “By the way, Dark Brandon is real.”
Republican-led states file lawsuit to block Biden’s student loan repayment plan
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Biden’s New York City fundraiser to bring in over $25 million
President Biden is expected to raise over $25 million at a star-studded fundraiser in New York City on Thursday with former Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
The campaign has billed it the “most successful political fundraiser in American history.” By Mr. Biden’s recent standards, that is true. For example, during a swing through Texas earlier this month, the Biden campaign raised a combined $7 million from three separate fundraisers. A fundraiser for Biden in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday raised $2.3 million.
Mr. Biden’s largest single-day haul prior to Thursday came in the 24 hours after his State of the Union address earlier in March, when he raised $10 million, according to his campaign.
But Thursday’s staggering sum is a new record for the campaign, and it further illustrates the growing cash gap between Mr. Biden and his presumptive general election opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Trump raised $20 million in the whole month of February and $8.8 million in January. He’s also been dogged by legal bills and payments, with his campaign and the political action committees supporting him spending over $10 million in legal fees this year.
Biden’s campaign committees have more than double the cash on hand of Trump’s equivalent groups, $155 million for Biden and $74 million for Trump as of late March.
“Unlike our opponent, every dollar we’re raising is going to reach the voters who will decide this election — communicating the President’s historic record, his vision for the future and laying plain the stakes of this election,” said Biden-Harris campaign co-chair and Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Trump’s campaign sent out two fundraising emails Wednesday mentioning Mr. Biden’s Thursday fundraiser, with one calling on “one million Trump supporters to donate to beat the “Obama-Clinton cartel” and the other reading, “We can’t lose to Obama!”
Thursday’s New York City fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall will be hosted by actress Mindy Kaling and will feature performances by several musical guests and artists, including Queen Latifah, Lizzo, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo and Lea Michele. The event will end with a discussion between Mr. Biden, Obama and Clinton moderated by “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert.
More than 5,000 tickets have been sold for the fundraiser.
Biden’s case for re-election is improving, but his polling against Trump is still shaky
WASHINGTON — The economy is improving, inflation is falling, joblessness is down, and the stock market is hitting record highs. Crime is dropping. U.S. crude oil production is at an all-time high. A special counsel declined to bring charges against President Joe Biden for mishandling classified information, and the Republican impeachment inquiry is flailing.
Biden’s case for re-election is strengthening, but he still enters the general election in a weaker position than he did in 2020, when he consistently led Donald Trump in national and swing state surveys, often by wide margins. His struggles come despite Trump’s mounting legal bills and four criminal cases, with one trial set to begin next month.
Democrats offer a variety of theories as to why.
“Because we haven’t made our argument yet,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said in an interview.
“Democrats’ record on the economy, on crime, on making prescription drugs less expensive, on climate action, on civil rights, on human rights, on gun safety — our record is strong, and [Trump’s] record was catastrophically bad,” he said. “But we haven’t spent any money and any time making that argument because we’ve been too busy doing the work. As we move into a different season, we’re going to be making that argument. Once people hear it, the votes move.”
‘We’ve got quite a bit of time’
The president has just over seven months — and a lot of votes to move, according to surveys as he and Trump clinched their party’s nominations this month. Nationally, most polls show a statistical tie or a Trump lead. By contrast, at this time in 2020, Biden was leading Trump by about 6 points in the FiveThirtyEight average.
In the battleground states that gave Biden the White House — like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona — surveys in recent weeks largely show dead heats or Trump leading outside the margins of error. A clear Biden lead was common in swing state polls around this time in 2020, but it’s all but absent today.
A new Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll Tuesday found signs of hope for Biden as he ticked upward against Trump in six of seven swing states over the last month. Still, there was little to celebrate: He was either trailing Trump or statistically tied in all seven states. The poll showed voter perceptions of the economy improving, as did a CNBC national survey that found a dead heat.
Biden’s campaign notes that Democrats have consistently overperformed the polls since 2022. But in 2016 and 2020, when Trump was on the ballot, Democrats underperformed the polls both times. And the Electoral College has built-in advantages for Trump: In 2020, Biden won the popular vote by 7 million and squeaked out an Electoral College win by 45,000 votes in three states.
Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt declined to comment on the polls but credited him for the improving economy.
“Joe Biden wakes up every day fighting to make life better for the American people,” she said. “The President is committed to earning not demanding Americans’ votes, unlike Donald Trump who is running a campaign of revenge and retribution for himself and his wealthy friends.”
The Trump campaign said its arguments remain strong.
“Inflation is still wildly out of control, prices of goods are astronomical, the border is an unmitigated disaster with illegals causing bloodbaths in communities across the country, and [special counsel Robert] Hur called low IQ Crooked Joe an elderly man with a terrible memory unfit to actually stand trial,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email. “Democrats and the media should stop gaslighting the American people from all the hurt Crooked Joe has caused in just four years.”
‘Some of Biden’s coalition is still wandering’
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he doesn’t believe the improving conditions will save Biden, because the benefits of lower unemployment and wage growth have been uneven.
“The economy is not uniform,” he said in an interview. “In a lot of respects, the elites in our country aren’t having the same daily experience that a lot of working families are. So I think there’s a big disconnect — some of it is economic, and I think some of it is cultural. That’s my gut instinct.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said Biden’s struggles are due to the fact that voters “are still reeling from the higher prices” even though inflation is down. He said Biden must speak to ongoing concerns like fentanyl poisoning, mental health and education.
“The cost of buying a home or renting a home and the cost of pharmaceuticals are high,” he said, calling for initiatives to “take on the hedge funds that are buying up the housing market” and negotiate “every drug for every American” to lower medicine costs. “In all those areas, team Biden does have policies that will make things better. And Trump, quite frankly, doesn’t,” he said. “We’ve got quite a bit of time before the election for this discussion to take place.”
Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who is bullish on Biden’s prospects, said “large numbers of voters haven’t checked in” and “some of Biden’s coalition is still wandering,” so surveys show him struggling with young and nonwhite voters. He predicted the polls will improve for Biden by “late spring,” around April or May.
“Our view is — and I sort of share the view of the campaign on this — that the likely scenario is that a chunk of the coalition will come home in the next few months as it becomes clear that it’s Biden-Trump and as the Biden campaign turns on,” Rosenberg said, “and then my expectation is we’ll be up a few points.”
Has GOP ‘fumbled’ its case against Biden?
Rosenberg said his optimism is partly due to the thinning GOP case.
“Their basic argument against Biden — much of it has evaporated in the last few months. The economy is strong; it’s not weak. Inflation is down; it’s not up. Violent crime and murder rates are plummeting, not rising. We’re producing more domestic energy of all kinds than ever before — there’s no war on energy,” he said. “And if you take those away … what they were left with was the ‘Biden crime family’ narrative,” which “has been exposed as a farce in recent weeks,” and Biden’s age.
“They had clear advantages on the border. And I think they’ve fumbled that now,” he said, citing the GOP’s rejection of a Biden-backed bipartisan bill to impose stricter border and asylum laws. “I think they’ve given us a chance to get back into a competitive position on the border or even go on offense about that.
“What that leaves the Republicans with is not a lot. They don’t really have obvious places to go after Biden,” Rosenberg said. “And the likelihood of this becoming a referendum on Trump has increased dramatically in my view in the last few weeks.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who also faces re-election this year, said the presidential race will be a fight to the end.
“The population is closely divided in a lot of our states. I’m very proud of the president’s record, and I’m proud of having been part of it. But I don’t see the next months as being smooth. I think we’re going to have to really work. We got to just battle every day to be successful. The nation needs for us to be successful,” he said. “It’s going to be a race unlike any other in the history of the country.”
China to challenge Biden’s electric vehicle plans at the WTO
BEIJING — China filed a World Trade Organization complaint against the United States on Tuesday over what it says are discriminatory requirements for electric vehicle subsidies.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry did not say what prompted the move. But under a new U.S. rule that took effect Jan. 1, electric car buyers are not eligible for tax credits of $3,750 to $7,500 if critical minerals or other battery components were made by Chinese, Russian, North Korean or Iranian companies. The credits are part of President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation, named the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
A ministry statement did not mention the specific restriction. It said, though, that under the act and its implementing rules, the U.S. had formulated discriminatory subsidy policies for new energy vehicles in the name of responding to climate change. It said the U.S. move excluded Chinese products, distorted fair competition and disrupted the global supply chain for new energy vehicles.
Member countries of the Geneva-based WTO can file complaints about the trade practices of other members and seek relief through a dispute settlement process.
The real-world impact of the case is uncertain. If the United States loses and appeals the ruling, China’s case most likely would go nowhere. That is because the WTO’s Appellate Body, its supreme court, hasn’t functioned since late 2019, when the U.S. blocked the appointment of new judges to the panel.
China is the dominant player in batteries for electric vehicles and has a rapidly expanding auto industry that could challenge the world’s established carmakers as it goes global. Its strength is in electric vehicles and its companies have become leaders in battery technology.
The European Union, concerned about the potential threat to its auto industry, launched its own investigation into Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles last year.
Under the new U.S. rule, only 13 of the more than 50 EVs on sale in the U.S. were eligible for tax credits, down from about two dozen models in 2023. Automakers have been scrambling to source parts that would make their models eligible for the credits.
Joe Biden’s brand is being tested like never before
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s brand as a family-oriented public servant has been a signature political asset that for more than 50 years has helped him win the argument that, when judged against “the alternative” rather than “the Almighty,” he stacks up pretty well.
He’s never lost to a general-election opponent in a political career that’s taken him from Delaware’s New Castle County Council to the Oval Office.
But the burnish on Biden’s brand is being tested like never before, ahead of a close 2024 election. Some of the president’s Democratic allies are worried about potential fallout from a confluence of family drama that’s spilled into public view and from Republican attacks that cut at the bedrock of Biden’s longtime political appeal.
The GOP-led House is investigating the extent of Biden’s role in helping his son Hunter Biden earn millions of dollars from foreign business interests during his time as vice president.
Republicans also say Biden’s Justice Department tried to give Hunter Biden a “sweetheart” plea deal on federal tax and firearm possession charges — a deal that fell apart last month after a judge questioned its terms. At the same time, a federal special counsel is investigating Biden’s handling of classified documents following his two terms as vice president.
In a matter of a much more personal nature, Biden recently acknowledged for the first time that he has a seventh grandchild — Navy Joan Roberts, the 4-year-old daughter of Hunter Biden, who wrote in a memoir that he doesn’t remember his “encounter” with her mother.
“The recent revelations with Hunter Biden really are in conflict with the current perception of his image of being squeaky clean,” Mike Noble, the CEO of the nonpartisan Noble Predictive Insights and a preeminent pollster in the Southwest, said of the president.
Noble said that in his firm’s trackers — including in the key 2024 states of Arizona and Nevada — Biden’s image regularly tests better than his job approval.
“I think this potentially impacts his image,” he said of the various criticisms of Biden and his family.
Democrats who are concerned about the possible political damage to Biden’s reputation are more reticent, and they privately note that this GOP narrative is different from criticism of the president’s age — 80 — or his handling of the economy because it’s so central to the type of leadership he’s offering voters.
“There’s a reason why his numbers are the way they are,” said one Democratic strategist, referring to the president’s low approval rating among Americans. Like other Democrats, the strategist requested anonymity to avoid retribution from fellow partisans.
“It’s not just the economy,” the strategist said of possible reasons behind Biden’s low job approval. “It’s not because people are just concerned about inflation. It’s not just because people are concerned about his age. His brand has been damaged by him and those around him.”
Nodding to the fear Democrats have of being blamed for weakening their own candidate — or incurring his wrath — the strategist emphatically declined to put his name to his remarks: “On the record? F— no! Are you crazy?” he said.
In June, an NBC News poll found that 48% of those surveyed held a negative view of the president and 39% had a positive view. Another 12% were neutral.
Earlier this year, a Pew Research Center poll showed 65% of Americans feared Republicans would spend too much time in Congress talking about Hunter Biden and not enough on kitchen table issues.
Still, Republicans plan to spend the next 15 months trying to diminish Biden’s powerful political asset as much as possible.
On Monday, the political action committee of former President Donald Trump — the current front-runner for the Republican nomination — released a new ad that casts the president as dishonest about his role in Hunter Biden’s lucrative foreign business dealings. The PAC, Make America Great Again, is spending $1.9 million on the ad, according to a spokesperson.
Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said recent data collected by Campaign Nucleus, a platform that measures public opinion, show at least a glimmer of weakness where Biden has long found strength. Parscale, a partner in the firm that runs Campaign Nucleus, said while Biden’s personal approval is at 43%, positive sentiment about issues involving his family is lower — at 40%.
“This net negative sentiment of 3% is a notable drag on his overall appeal,” Parscale said.
In the 2024 election, Biden will have to rely on voters to look past any discomfort with the nicks in his narrative when they compare him to the alternative — which current polling shows is likely to be Trump, who has been indicted three times and impeached twice.
Though Biden and Trump are effectively tied in recent national polling, Democrats say they are confident Biden’s record — both in terms of policies and character — stands up much better to scrutiny than Trump’s.
“Republicans have spent four years and millions of dollars spreading lies about President Biden and his family because it’s easier than talking about their deeply unpopular and extreme agenda,” said Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee.
“It hasn’t worked, and it never will, because Americans know that Joe Biden is a fundamentally decent person who loves his family and whose devotion to his country has made him one of the most effective presidents in a generation,” Moussa said.
Yet there is some concern within the party that the Hunter Biden storylines are creating a distraction from Trump’s character and the substantive policy issues the president’s team believes will ultimately decide the election.
Felisia Martin, vice chair of the state Democratic Party in electoral battleground Wisconsin, said there is growing frustration among Democrats in her state about the focus on Hunter Biden over issues like inflation.
“We voted for Joe Biden to be president of the United States, not Hunter Biden,” said Martin, who also is a member of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. “Hunter Biden doesn’t have a position in the Biden-Harris administration, therefore, I’m not concerned unless there is proof that the president has something to do with some nefarious dealings.”
Republicans, and news organizations, have not found evidence that Biden received money from any of Hunter Biden’s business relationships.
In 2019, Joe Biden wrote a post on X — then called Twitter — claiming, “I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”
But late last month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre shifted that stance amid revelations that House Republicans had uncovered evidence of Hunter Biden talking to his father while meeting with business associates.
“The president,” Pierre said, as she recalibrated the White House response to questions about whether the two Bidens had spoken about business ventures, “was never in business with his son.”
Last week, Devon Archer, who was one of Hunter Biden’s business partners, testified in a closed session before the House Oversight Committee about the importance of the Biden “brand” — specifically Hunter Biden’s proximity to his father — in securing and maintaining business, according to a publicly released transcript of his meeting with House investigators.
Indeed, the power of the Biden name likely helped Hunter Biden at nearly every turn of his career: from consulting for MBNA, a Delaware-based bank whose employees were a major source of campaign money for the elder Biden, and lobbying Congress while his father was a senator; to winning an appointment to Amtrak’s board from President George W. Bush and earning large sums from foreign business dealings when his father was vice president.
Archer recounted two dinners with Hunter Biden’s foreign associates that Joe Biden attended at a Washington, D.C., restaurant when he was vice president. The dinners included a Russian real estate magnate and a top executive at Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that hired Hunter Biden as a consultant.
Archer testified that he is unaware of any official U.S. government action taken on behalf of Burisma. In general, he testified, the younger Biden “would sometimes make it apparent that he spoke to his dad” or put his father on speaker phone when interacting with investors and business contacts.
The conversations were casual, according to Archer’s testimony, but gave the impression of closeness between father and son. Archer also said he had no knowledge of wrongdoing by the president.
Democrats say there’s no comparison between Trump and Biden when it comes to self-dealing — and that they hope that is obvious to the electorate.
Trump was indicted by special counsel Jack Smith on various charges related to his alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election and wrongfully retaining classified documents after leaving office. He was also indicted by the Manhattan district attorney on charges of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The special counsel investigating Biden’s handling of classified documents after his time as vice president has not announced any conclusion to the probe, but one is expected in the coming months. Biden has said he unwittingly possessed classified documents after leaving the vice presidency.
Whether the “family man” brand issue becomes a problem for Biden in the 2024 campaign, there may be little he can do at this point to affect it, in the view of some of his allies. And Biden allies hope voters will see his decisions as him being a caring father and won’t penalize him for that.
“What is he supposed to do, cut his son off because he wants to be president?” said former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, D-Ill. “You don’t stop being a dad because you want to be vice president or president.”
Democrats close to Biden said Republicans will be hard-pressed to tear down a brand that has been built over decades. Biden’s reputation for empathy also is one reason that Democrats are reluctant to publicly criticize his handling of his relationship with Hunter Biden. In many cases, that empathy is something they’ve experienced themselves.
Bill Houlihan, a Democratic strategist and longtime aide to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., recalled how years ago when he told Biden that his mother was turning 90, Biden told Houlihan to get his mother on the phone and then wished her a happy birthday.
“My mom told that story until she died,” Houlihan said. “You don’t do that to make a name for yourself; you do that because you love people.”
Yet in some ways, the most prominent aspect of Joe Biden’s political brand — that he’s a family man — has recently taken the biggest hit.
Biden has held Hunter Biden — his only surviving son and a recovering drug addict — so publicly close that some Democrats have privately raised concerns that doing so hurts him politically. Yet it wasn’t until last month, amid Republican criticism and some friendly admonishments, that Biden acknowledged he has a seventh grandchild.
The president was waiting until after Hunter Biden resolved his legal disputes with Navy’s mother, Lunden Roberts, before opening his arms to his granddaughter, according to people close to him.
That legal settlement, however, reportedly precludes Navy from using the Biden family name.
Borrowers take to TikTok to weigh options after Biden’s student loan forgiveness was blocked
Student borrowers are floating a range of ideas online for lightening their burdens when loan repayments resume on Oct. 1: Pay a little, pay nothing, cite Scripture.
In a recent viral TikTok with over 50,000 likes, Dawn Cowle discusses a letter she sent to Nelnet, her student loan issuer, featuring a verse from the Book of Deuteronomy: “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.”
Cowle acknowledged she was joking — mostly.
“It would be ridiculous if Nelnet was like, ‘Oh, OK, sure, no questions asked. You can’t pay your loans back? You got it!’” she said.
But like many indebted borrowers, she’s had frustrations to vent since June 30, when the Supreme Court invalidated President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt per eligible borrower.
Throwing the Bible at Nelnet, Cowle said, “would show that we are not in a position to just continue to lay down and be steamrolled.” (Nelnet didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
Sentiments like Cowle’s have reanimated a vocal online community of borrowers and activists, some of whom have long campaigned for government debt relief or, failing that, a mass boycott of student loan repayments. But experts — and some borrowers who’ve tried it — warn that most people risk serious consequences for not ponying up.
“The financial repercussions of not paying your student loans, to me, is probably one of the worst financial decisions that you can make as an individual,” said Robert Farrington, the founder of the College Investor, which works to improve young people’s financial literacy.
Nonpayment, especially for those with loans from the federal government, could lead the authorities to garnish borrowers’ tax refunds, or their Social Security or disability payments, he said. It can also limit access to more student aid in the future and even hinder employment.
Not paying your student loans, to me, is probably one of the worst financial decisions that you can make.
Robert Farrington, founder of the College Investor
“It’s not new,” Farrington said about the idea of deliberate nonpayment, “but I think because now payments are resuming, it’s definitely getting a lot more traction.”
Over 45 million Americans hold more than $1.7 trillion in federal student loans, with the average borrower owing over $37,000, according to the Education Data Initiative. Most student debt is federal, with only 8% of students borrowing from private issuers.
Shahem Mclaurin, a TikTok creator with over half a million followers, asked viewers in a recent viral video whether people will begin paying back their loans after the Supreme Court rejected Biden’s plan.
“And this is not a joking, play-play-like type of situation,” Mclaurin said. “Are we not paying — like collectively, as a whole — meaning if you put a payment down you are breaking, you’re crossing the line?”
Thousands of comments and “stitches,” where TikTok users incorporate existing posts into their own, weighed in on Mclaurin’s idea. The first-generation college graduate earned a master’s degree from NYU in 2020, owes $150,000 and doesn’t plan on paying any of it back soon, citing the high costs of living.
“I worry every day,” Mclaurin said of the possible repercussions. “Sometimes I don’t sleep at night. I have a lot of anxiety around it.”
After the Supreme Court ruling, the Biden administration unveiled a yearlong grace period starting this fall, insulating borrowers from near-term consequences for nonpayment even while interest begins to accrue again starting Sept. 1. And under longstanding federal policies, borrowers with existing student debt can typically get their payments paused temporarily if they go back to school. In many cases, though, interest will continue to accrue.
Cowle said her loans are deferred for now as she works on her MFA in screenwriting; payments will kick in six months after she graduates a couple of years from now. While she said she didn’t pursue another degree as a deferment strategy, some are saying they will.
Dominic McDonald, a May 2022 graduate of Albion College in Michigan, said the ruling expedited his decision to apply for graduate school this year to avoid paying his loans. “I am under some financial stress because I’ve never had to do it before,” he said.
There are ways to pay less through other avenues that don’t entail potential penalties, Farrington said. He estimates that half of student loan borrowers qualify for some type of forgiveness program, but many haven’t filed the paperwork to receive it.
“People are just leaving loan forgiveness money on the table that they should qualify for,” he said.
The Debt Collective, an organization founded in 2012 alongside the Occupy Wall Street movement, has been promoting a “Can’t Pay! Won’t Pay! Student Debt Strike” on its website and offering advice about “the multiple ways you can safely get to nonpayment.”
Those include income-driven repayment plans, which adjust monthly payments to a borrower’s income, and public service loan forgiveness, which allows people working in government and other civic-oriented jobs to have their debts zeroed out. Farrington also encourages these methods, among others, and hopes more people will pursue them.
Even if [the monthly payment] is a couple hundred dollars, I need it.
student borrower Josie Bridges
After the Supreme Court ruling, “We internally are like, ‘Oh wow, we need to prepare for this influx of people,’” said Braxton Brewington, the Debt Collective’s press secretary. He said the group has seen interest in its debt strike jump in recent weeks and expects it to rise further as Oct. 1 nears.
Asked whether the collective worries its messaging could be misinterpreted as a call to simply boycott repayments indefinitely, Brewington said the organization encourages people to avoid defaulting on their loans if they can help it. But he said the group aims to highlight the tough financial predicament many borrowers face.
“What’s blanketed the whole conversation about ‘Should people just not pay?’ is people don’t want to be subjected to the harsh consequences of the federal government,” he said, adding that the Debt Collective urges borrowers to use their money on necessities like food, medication or housing over paying back their loans. “In a lot of ways, there isn’t a choice,” he said.
Some borrowers are warning others online against nonpayment, with a few saying they’d had their wages garnished. Other efforts are popping up to offer cash-strapped debt-holders informal or crowdsourced support through community funds and mutual aid. One TikTok user has even floated creating a lottery system to help pay off random people’s student loans every week.
Josie Bridges, a single mother in Portland, Oregon, said she was eligible to have all of her student loans forgiven under the White House plan. Now, between rent and other basic expenses, she said she couldn’t afford to resume payments this fall even if she wanted to.
“Even if [the monthly payment] is a couple hundred dollars, I need it,” she said.
Bridges is watching the calendar tick down to October with trepidation. She’s even considering picking up a couple new classes — and racking up more debt in the process — just to defer the coming payments.
“Now that they’re back, I’m stressed out,” she said.
House panel releases interview transcript of Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, testifying on Joe Biden calls
Washington — The GOP-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee released the 141 page transcript of its interview earlier this week with Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, who testified about his business dealings with President Biden’s son. Archer testified that Hunter Biden was selling “the brand,” and it was the elder Biden who “brought the most value to the brand,” according to the transcript.
Archer told the committee staff and lawmakers, “I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it.” Then, Rep. Dan Goldman, Democrat of New York, asked Archer if he had any knowledge that Joe Biden had any direct involvement with Burisma, and Archer replied, “No.”
In response to questions from Congressman Goldman about the brand’s alleged impact, Archer said that it appeared to shield Burisma “because people would be intimidated to mess with them.”
In a separate line of questioning by Republican congressman Andy Biggs, of Arizona, Archer was asked whether the brand was about “Dr. Jill or anybody else. You’re talking about Joe Biden, Is that fair to say?”
“Yeah, that’s fair to say,” Archer replied.
Archer served alongside Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, beginning in 2014, while the elder Biden was vice president and deeply involved in Ukraine policy. Archer is widely believed to have facilitated Hunter Biden’s entry onto Burisma’s board.
Republicans on the committee asked Archer about two dinners, one in 2014 and another in 2015 at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., with Hunter Biden’s foreign business associates, both of which the then-vice president attended.
“I recall that he had dinner. It was a regular — not a long dinner, but dinner,” Archer said of the spring 2014 dinner. Russian billionaire businesswoman Yelena Baturina was there, as well as an executive from Burisma.
Archer testified that in April 2014 there was an incoming wire for $142,300 which he said was used by Hunter Biden to buy a sports car, “I believe it was a Fisker first and then a Porsche…For an expensive car, yes.”
Archer, according to the transcript, also testified that the elder Biden was put on speaker phone with business contacts, potential business associates including foreign national “maybe 20 times” during the course of Archer’s and Hunter Biden’s business relationship. Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand,” Archer said.
“Part of what was delivered is the brand,” he said. “I mean, it’s like anything, you know, if you’re Jamie Dimon’s son or any CEO. You know, I think that’s what we’re talking about, is that there was brand being delivered along with other capabilities and reach.”
Asked what the Bidens talked about when Joe Biden was on speaker phone, Archer responded, “Say, where are you, how’s the weather, how’s the fishing, how’s the — whatever — but, you know, it was very, you know, casual conversations.”
Archer was also asked if then-Vice President Biden regularly “checked in on his son, who’s admitted he’s had issues with drugs.”
“Every day,” Archer replied. But asked whether he had ever heard them discuss the “substance of Hunter Biden’s business,” he responded, “No.”
While the speakerphone calls were described as casual conversations, Archer also testified he believed there may be more involved. “I think that the calls were — that’s what it was. They were calls to talk about the weather, and that was signal enough to be powerful.”
After Archer was interviewed Monday, and before the transcript was available for independent review, Goldman said Archer testified Hunter Biden was selling the “illusion of access” to his father.
“His exact testimony was that Hunter Biden possessed actual experience and contacts in Washington, D.C., in the political sphere, in the lobbying sphere, in the executive branch, and that that is ultimately what he was providing to Burisma,” Goldman said. “But in return for pressure from Burisma, he had to give the illusion — he used that term, the illusion — of access to his father, and he tried to get credit for things that he, that Mr. Archer testified Hunter had nothing to do with, such as when Vice President Biden went to Ukraine on his own.”
The transcript shows Goldman used the term “illusion of access” in his line of questioning, and Archer’s answers were more nuanced.
He asked Archer, “Is it fair to say that Hunter Biden was selling the illusion of access to his father?”
Archer replied, “Yes.”
Goldman followed up, “So, when you talk about selling the brand, it’s not about selling access to his father. It’s about selling the illusion of access to his father. Is that fair?”
Archer replied, “Is that fair? I mean, yeah, that is — I think that’s — that’s almost fair.”
Goldman asked, “‘Almost fair.’ Why, ‘almost fair?'”
“Because there are touch points and contact points that I can’t deny that happened, but nothing of material was discussed,” Archer said.
Archer’s interview was the latest development in the GOP’s investigations into Hunter Biden as Republicans seek to tie his controversial business dealings to the president.
The White House has repeatedly denied that the president had any involvement in his son’s business ventures. White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement after Archer testified that House Republicans’ “own witnesses appear to be debunking their allegations.”
“It appears that the House Republicans’ own much-hyped witness today testified that he never heard of President Biden discussing business with his son or his son’s associates, or doing anything wrong,” he said last week.
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said earlier this week Archer’s testimony confirmed that he “did not involve his father in, nor did his father assist him in, his business” and that any interaction between Hunter Biden’s father and business associates “was simply to exchange small talk.”
The Oversight Committee has sought information on any possible involvement from the president in his son’s foreign business deals for months. In a letter to Archer’s attorney in June, Oversight Committee chairman James Comer said Archer “played a significant role in the Biden family’s business deals abroad, including but not limited to China, Russia, and Ukraine.”
Archer was convicted in 2018 of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud for his role in a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe and multiple pension funds. His conviction was overturned later that year, and U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abram wrote in her decision she was “left with an unwavering concern that Archer is innocent of the crimes charged.”
The conviction was later reinstated by a federal appeals court. Archer lost an appeal of that decision. He has not yet been sentenced.
— Ellis Kim and Michael Kaplan contributed reporting.
Catherine Herridge
Why Biden’s in a bind on Russian oil profits
Oil prices have been creeping up, which means Russia is earning more energy revenue it can use to prolong its barbaric invasion of Ukraine. It’s a confounding problem with no easy solution.
Last December, the Biden administration led a collation of advanced nations known as the G-7 in imposing a price cap on Russian oil. The $60-per-barrel cap was meant to pinch Russia’s oil revenue and its wartime financing, while keeping Russian supply on the market to prevent a global price hike that might occur if Russia curtailed exports.
The price cap held for most of the year, but Russia is now selling oil at about $68 per barrel, the highest price for Russian crude since last fall. That could go higher if market prices for oil keep rising, which many analysts expect. Global demand is strong, and production cuts by the OPEC+ cartel, which Russia belongs to, are keeping supply tight, causing price pressure.
This could provide Russian President Vladimir Putin badly needed cash to keep his war going, including the production of artillery shells and other types of ammunition Russian troops are burning through on the battlefield. Sanctions are supposed to choke off Putin’s warmaking capability, but Russia’s economy seems a lot more durable than many analysts hoped after 18 months of sanctions.
Some critics say the US-led coalition should cut the cap on Russian oil to $50 or less. But that seems unlikely. Russia, the world’s third-largest oil producer, has cut its own exports recently, contributing to the rise in the Brent benchmark from $74 at the end of June to more than $85 now. US gasoline prices are once again approaching $4 per gallon, a symbolic but important pain threshold for consumers. President Biden’s approval rating dropped sharply during last year’s run up in gas prices and overall inflation, and he certainly doesn’t want a repeat of that as the 2024 election cycle gets underway.
“The G7 price cap on Russian exports will be increasingly tested,” Eurasia group analysts wrote in a July 31 report. “But substantial changes to the cap level are unlikely given economic and political concerns, especially in the US.”
A senior Biden administration official told Yahoo Finance that an overlooked goal of the price-cap regime is to relieve the kind of supply panic that sent oil prices soaring after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, causing hardship for energy consumers worldwide.
“We have two goals,” the official said, “lowering Putin’s revenue and keeping supply on the market. A lower price cap does raise the risk the Kremlin could refuse to sell oil at all. We think we’re in a much better place keeping oil prices stable, while creating this economic lever that puts downward pressure on Russian prices.”
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Oil is Russia’s largest source of revenue, and the price cap was a novel yet unproven way of constricting that funding without further disrupting global energy markets. G-7 nations provide insurance and maritime services for many of the world’s oil tankers, and those services are now only available for Russian crude sold below the price cap. Buyers don’t have to abide by the price cap, but there’s incentive for them to do so, because oil prices have been above $60 the whole time it’s been in effect. So buying Russian oil at $60 or less is a bargain.
Russia’s cost of production is as low as $15 per barrel, so it’s still making money on oil sales—but not the windfall it raked in last year, when global prices went as high as $133 per barrel. In June, Russia’s energy revenue hit the lowest level since the war began in February 2022, according to Finland’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. But that’s mainly because market prices for energy have fallen, not because of the oil price cap. Russia’s energy revenue should pop back up now that oil prices are rising again.
Russian oil trades at a discount to market prices because of the whole range of sanctions that make it harder to finance and process transactions involving Russian exports. Before the price cap went into effect last December, Russian crude traded at a $15 to $20 discount to the Brent crude. The spread is still about the same.
In a recent analysis, the Petersen Institute for Intl. Economics noted that sanctions as a whole “have successfully reduced Russia’s export earnings and budget revenues.” But Peterson researchers found the oil price cap to be one of the least effective sanctions. More important, they say, is the European Union’s embargo on nearly all Russian oil purchases, which had forced Russia to reorient its entire export structure away from Europe, with India and China now its largest energy customers.
Peterson found many violations of the oil price cap, and others have documented the use of a “ghost fleet” to flout the price cap and other sanctions. “The [EU] embargo has had more of an effect than the price cap, in part because the cap’s level is too high and enforcement is lacking,” Peterson concluded. It called the $60 price cap “irrelevant.”
The G-7 coalition could lower the price cap. When the strategy went into effect, Ukraine and some other Eastern European nations argued for a $30 price cap. Robin Brooks, chief economist at the Institute for Intl. Finance, says it’s now time to lower the price cap from $60 to $50.
But Ukraine’s allies are reluctant. If oil supplies stayed the same, lowering the price cap would dent Russia’s war financing with no harm to anybody else. But in a tight market, Russia easily has the heft to send prices soaring by cutting off some supply. Russia could suffer costly infrastructure damage if it “shut in” oil and significantly cut back on exports. But Putin’s dodgy handling of the whole Ukrainian war effort shows a willingness to suffer self-inflicted wounds.
“All else equal, lowering the price cap would reduce Russia’s revenue if the same number of barrels were sold,” the senior administration official said. “But we also want to keep supply on the market. We don’t want to set a scenario where Russia would take oil off the market.” Government modeling does suggest that a lower price cap could, in fact, lead Russia to pull supply and jack up prices.
Ukraine’s allies continue to discuss further sanctions that could tighten the screws on Russia. But the toughest measures were largely in place by February, when the European Union imposed price caps on Russian petroleum products, such as diesel fuel. Since then, the economic battle with Russia has come to parallel the military one, a war of attrition in which neither side gains a decisive advantage. Russia is hurting, just not nearly enough.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.
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