WASHINGTON, DC – NEA President Randi Weingarten had what is being called an epic meltdown on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, protesting against a legal challenge to President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness.
Weingarten, the head of America’s largest teachers union, said pandemic relief for small businesses and corporations went unchallenged but said the lawsuit before the supreme court “really pisses me off.”
“All of the sudden, when it’s about our students, they challenge it,” Weingarten said. “The corporations challenge it. The student loan corporations challenge it. That is not right. That is not fair.”
Tens of thousands of school teachers have already qualified for student loan forgiveness. During the pandemic, the federal government enacted a student loan payment pause that began in March 2020 and was recently extended for many until the end of August 2023.
President Joe Biden extended the student loan pause for all government-held student loans in November after federal courts blocked his forgiveness plan.
Biden’s plan called for $10,000 or more of student loan debt cancellation for as many as 40,000,000 borrowers.
“I’m confident that our student debt relief plan is legal. But it’s on hold because Republican officials want to block it,” Biden said after the Republicans challenged his plan.
Fox News called Weingarten’s speech at the Supreme Court a “meltdown” that proves “she’s out of touch.”
The New York Post reported her speech as an ignorant anti-democratic rant.
“Randi Weingarten — the nation’s top teacher, in a sense — seems ignorant of what any child could learn about government from “Schoolhouse Rock,” the Post Editorial Board reported. “The president is supposed to execute laws Congress passes; he can’t simply shower mountains of taxpayer dollars on whatever causes he chooses. And if he tries, Americans have every right to ask the courts to stop him.”