| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from Ella Creamer, Jesse Naranjo, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
|  President Joe Biden delivers remarks on student loan debt on Monday at Madison College in Wisconsin. | POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP | What up, Recast family! Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump sidesteps answering whether he’ll support a national ban on abortion, angering some within his party. Plus, an activist working with independent White House hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. urges New York Republicans to rally behind her candidate to defeat a “mutual enemy” in President Joe Biden. First, we return our focus to Wisconsin, where Biden unveiled new student debt relief plans. President Joe Biden is giving it the old college try, again. He traveled Monday to Wisconsin, a state that is critical to his chances of returning to the White House next year, promoting his latest push to cancel student debt for millions of borrowers. But there were a few glaring points missing from his speech. Sure, the announcement makes good on a promise made during his 2020 campaign that hasn’t been fully realized. He wanted to signal that despite congressional Republicans’ disinterest and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court thwarting his executive actions tackling loan forgiveness, he was still forging ahead. “We made a commitment to fix our broken student loan system,” Biden said Monday at Madison Area Technical College, which marked his second visit to Wisconsin in less than a month. “Starting this fall we plan to deliver up to $20,000 in interest relief to over 20 million borrowers and full forgiveness for millions more,” Biden added. Officials said the Education Department plans to formally propose the new program in the coming months and they expect to finalize it and swiftly implement it later this year. However, the president's remarks offered few new details about the structure of the program, which the Education Department has already debated publicly for months. Nor did he talk about how his plan would benefit borrowers of color and other groups disproportionately impacted by borrowing money to cover the steep cost of college. It’s an interesting omission for sure given that groups including the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP have produced research demonstrating that canceling student debt would do a lot to help close the racial wealth gap.
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National Republicans, including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, railed against the administration’s announcement.
“If you take out a loan, you pay it back,” Scott said on X. “This is another ridiculous effort from President Biden to appease his base with massive giveaways.” We should note the White House did allude to some of the burdens faced by borrowers of color in the fact sheet released to the public ahead of Biden’s remarks. That included this factoid: “[t]he typical Black borrower who started college in the 1995-96 school year still owed 95 percent of their original student debt.” Another factoid pointed out that “Latino borrowers are also more likely to default on their student loans compared to white borrowers, with 15% of those in repayment in default and 29% in serious delinquency.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris discusses student debt relief in a separate visit Monday to Philadelphia. | Alejandro A. Alvarez/The Philadelphia Inquirer | So why not highlight how this new plan can address this? Well… the answer might have a lot to do with Biden’s intended audience. “What I found fascinating was that it was clearly a very explicit choice to not be at University of Wisconsin Madison,” says Allison Prasch who teaches about rhetoric, politics and culture at UW, which sports a student body population of more than 50,600. She adds that the speech, while ostensibly geared toward students, had an underlying message for folks not typically thought of when people think of UW, which is considered by many to be among the state’s most elite universities. Instead, Prasch says, Biden’s overtures were aimed at white, blue-collar voters, which she sees as one of the reasons why Biden didn’t emphasize how this debt relief program would impact voters of color. “Because he is trying to reach white, rural voters, he's not going to narrate that because the way that's gonna get spun very quickly in Wisconsin, like, ‘Oh, Biden is just doing this for the DEI initiatives, and he doesn't actually care about working white people.’” As we pointed out in last week’s edition of The Recast, Wisconsin is a swing state that is typically won by the narrowest of margins. Biden flipped the state four years ago, winning by 20,682 votes over then-President Donald Trump. And, as we also noted, when Wisconsin held its presidential primary last week, a broad coalition of progressives, young people and pro-Palestianian activists angered over Biden’s continued support of Israel and its ongoing war in Gaza turned out to vote “uninstructed” — their state’s version of the “uncommitted” push. The activists, led by the group Listen to Wisconsin, garnered nearly 50,000 votes — an impressive feat given that activists only began organizing less than a month before the April 2 primary. The 14,489 votes from Dane County, which includes Madison and UW, made up roughly 30 percent of all the “uninstructed” votes cast and were the highest activist showing of any county in the state.
|  Protestors demonstrate before Biden's event in Madison on Monday. | Kayla Wolf/AP | Yesterday, as he made his announcement, Biden remained singularly focused on touting his student loan plan. He did not mention the conflict in Gaza, nor did he acknowledge the estimated 50 or so protesters outside the event calling for a permanent ceasefire. Democratic state Rep. Francesca Hong, who supported the state’s “uninstructed” push, also acknowledges there was another missed opportunity for Biden. She said the president could have addressed attacks on diversity and inclusion programs, like the ones the Republican-led Legislature engaged in to gut positions and programs throughout the University of Wisconsin system last year in exchange for funds to cover staff raises and construction projects. Last year, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos vowed not to give universities another “nickel” until the DEI programs were eliminated, according to The Cap Times, based in Madison. Hong and other state Democrats fought against that effort, but were ultimately defeated. “[The Democrats] are united on issues involving race, like we’ve gotten wins before,” Hong tells The Recast. “It's approached right now with caution, instead of … drawing a line of where [Democrats] stand and what we continue to fight for.” If the Biden campaign hesitates to address complicated race issues on the trail, Hong adds, “then it will likely make folks in those communities feel devalued” by this campaign and they’ll be less likely to show up at the polls. Ben Wikler, the chair of Democratic Party of Wisconsin, took no issue with Biden’s student loan remarks. He predicts that in the coming months the campaign will roll out a more comprehensive plan on how to sell the proposed debt relief to voters of color.
|  Biden visits his campaign's office March 13 in Milwaukee. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP | “Through all the different things that campaign does, communicating to different communities about the effects directly on them, makes clear that he's president for everyone.” He adds that the bigger task is making sure the Democratic coalition, including those who voted in last week’s “uninstructed” vote, continue to feel seen by the party and show up for Biden in November. As promised, we’ll keep tabs on this and report back on how all of this continues to develop as we march closer to Election Day. All the best,
The Recast Team
| | | WILL MAYORKAS’ IMPEACHMENT FIZZLE?
|  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks about immigration and border security on Feb. 29, 2024, in Olmito, Texas. | Cheney Orr/Getty Images | | House Republicans are expected to deliver their articles of impeachment Wednesday, forcing the Democratic-led Senate to swear in jurors — though the whole dog and pony show could easily dissolve shortly after that. As you may recall, the House narrowly voted 214-213 to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in February on charges that he betrayed the public trust and failed to comply with immigration laws. That stems from the mainstream GOP view that Mayorkas is failing to secure the southern border. As my colleague Jordain Carney pointed out, this makes Mayorkas the first Cabinet secretary in 148 years to be impeached by the House. And as she reported at the time: “The Senate is all but guaranteed to sidestep it.” Earlier today, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told another colleague, Burgess Everett: “We will do what we have to do and we’ll work with Republicans to dispose of it, as quickly and appropriately as we can.” But several Republicans aren’t going to watch Democrats table it without a fight. Take Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who reportedly is looking for multiple ways to keep a spotlight on the trial this week, despite its likely demise. Lee even tweeted (sorry, can’t bring myself to say X’d) at Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, needling him by suggesting that Democrats have something to hide if they refuse to allow a full impeachment trial to move forward. So far, Schumer hasn’t said if he’ll dismiss the trial quickly. He could do so by referring the articles to a special committee or he could call for an up-or-down vote by the full Senate shortly after jurors are sworn in — which only requires a simple majority. Democrats argue the charges against Mayorkas do not meet the impeachment threshold of committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Instead, Democrats have accused Republicans of using impeachment as a political tool to fight a policy dispute.
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Rep. Jamaal Bowman is facing a tough Democratic primary in June with Westchester County Executive George Latimer. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | Israel War and a Top House Dem Primary — Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza is taking center stage in New York’s 16th Congressional District, where incumbent Jamaal Bowman, an outspoken Israel critic, is facing a challenge from fellow Democrat George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, who’s backed by pro-Israel groups. POLITICO’s Nick Reisman and Jason Beeferman break down how recent events, like the killing of World Central Kitchen relief workers, are changing the dynamics of the race. Chechnya’s “Controlla” — Our colleagues across the Atlantic are reporting that the culture ministry in Chechnya is moving to ban “any songs that are too up-tempo — or down-tempo.” POLITICO Europe’s Seb Starcevic and Claudia Chiappa report that the banned artists include Drake, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. RFK Activist Says the Quiet Part Out Loud — In a bid to unify New York Republicans around the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., POLITICO’s Brittany Gibson reports that activist Rita Palma told a group in the Hudson Valley: “The Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, our mutual enemy is Biden.”
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS In Julia Alvarez’s new novel, “The Cemetery of Untold Stories,” writer Alma Cruz creates a graveyard for her unfinished manuscripts — but the abandoned characters fight back. Simone Joy Jones takes a leading role as Tanya in the reimagined black comedy “Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.” When Tanya’s mom heads off on a wellness retreat in Thailand, Tanya is left to handle her three younger siblings, alongside work and a budding romance. It's in theaters on Friday.
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| Doja Cat dances under a spotlight in a headdress made of sparkling silver keys as part of a music video for dreamlike track “Masc,” which also has a spidery theme (arachnophobes, best to sit this one out). Gala Porras-Kim, whose work has often questioned the collecting practices of museums, has a climate-focused exhibition at MCA Denver. Some of the installations grow, evolve or degrade over time: One involves water droplets passing through graphite-saturated burlap, making an abstract drawing on a white panel placed beneath. Everyone is glued to their devices until their phones, tablets and laptops begin to fly away in the music video for “Human,” Lenny Kravitz’s upbeat new jam.
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| TikTok of the Week: Footwork
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