Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas Governor and two-time GOP presidential candidate, is a Baptist minister campaigning for former President Donald Trump, a job which often includes criticizing President Joe Biden.
After Biden announced this week a new student debt relief proposal which would affect nearly 30 million people and target low-income groups of borrowers, Huckabee responded.
He wrote: “If Biden wants to help not so smart students who got suckered into a loan they couldn’t afford and now are so pathetic in their jobs they can’t pay it back, get the refund from the schools that failed them–not the taxpayers who had nothing to do with it!”
While many taxpaying commenters don’t want to be on the hook for the loans — and say so — Huckabee’s choice of words isn’t sitting well with other voters. As one replied: “Not a fan of the policy but calling people Pathetic in their jobs is pretty divisive and unhelpful, gotta block ya Mike you consistently seek to divide us, your fellow Americans. Good bye.”
Another replied: “Mike, those are pretty harsh words for a man who routinely boasts of his Christian faith. You’re just one more Christian dude whose life has no connection with the biblical Jesus.”
If Biden wants to help not so smart students who got suckered into a loan they couldn’t afford and now are so pathetic in their jobs they can’t pay it back, get the refund from the schools that failed them–not the taxpayers who had nothing to do with it!
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) April 10, 2024
Note: In 2018, a federal court approved a $25 million settlement with students who said they were duped by Donald Trump and his now-defunct Trump University, which promised to teach them the “secrets of success” in the real estate industry.
Trump University was found to have used many of the same tactics as predatory colleges: “preying on vulnerable populations, implying that the school offered a fast track to financial security, and creating the impression that the recruiter is a friendly advisor.”
The Trump University settlement was, notably, prior to New York Attorney General Letitia James‘s civil fraud case accusing Trump of inflating the value of his real estate assets in order to obtain favorable bank loans, which he claimed was “a victimless crime.”