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By Zoe Strozewski
Staff Writer
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Fox News host and conservative political commentator Sean Hannity complained Wednesday that some of his television show employees would be eligible for the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness.
Hannity noted that some of the younger workers on his staff make less than $125,000, which is the eligibility cutoff under President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan.
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"They're now eligible to get in some cases up to $20,000 and in other cases $10,000," he said. "This is New Green Deal radical socialism."
After promising during his presidential campaign to provide student debt relief and facing pressure to follow through on that vow while in office, Biden announced Wednesday that his administration would be canceling some debt for individuals who meet certain criteria.
He posted an outline of his plan on Twitter explaining that $10,000 in debt would be forgiven for those who did not receive Pell Grants for college, while those who went to college on Pell Grants could see $20,000 of debt eliminated.
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While Democrats praised the decision, many Republicans and conservatives sharply criticized it.
Hannity—who earned $43 million in 2020, according to Forbes—described Biden's proposal as a "bailout plan for rich people to send their kids to school." He also asked what was "so bad about working your way through school," and said that the people who will likely benefit most from the debt cancellation are middle-class.
A White House fact sheet on Biden's plan that was released Wednesday said that no high-income individuals or families (those in the top 5 percent of incomes) would benefit from the relief. It also said that the plan would provide targeted relief to low- and middle-income borrowers by providing up to $20,000 in forgiveness to Pell Grant recipients who make less than $125,000 a year.
Citing data on the Federal Student Aid website, the sheet said that almost all Pell Grant recipients came from families that made less than $60,000 per year. These recipients "typically experience more challenges repaying their debt than other borrowers," it added.
Fellow Fox News host Tucker Carlson also railed against the student debt cancellation Wednesday on his show and in an opinion piece published on the news network's website. Carlson, among other points, asked how it made sense to "punish" people who did the "right thing" by paying off their loans.
"And there are a lot of those because Americans are law-abiding people," Carlson said. "They want to do the right thing. It's the law."
Newsweek reached out to Fox News for comment.
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