Biden to announce $4.28 billion in student loan relief for 55,000 borrowers

After an onslaught of criticism toward the insurance industry following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., expressed sympathy for the victim, but acknowledged the debate it sparked over inequities in the health care system.

“There is no justification for violence,” Khanna told ABC “This Week” anchor Martha Raddatz. “But the outpouring afterwards has not surprised me.”

Thompson’s killing led to an ongoing massive manhunt for the suspected killer and sparked rampant discussion online about the cost of health care and the insurance industry in the United States.

Khanna said he agrees with the assessment of independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who wrote: “We waste hundreds of billions a year on health care administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured. Health care is a human right. We need Medicare for All.”

Khanna said that the U.S. should be moving toward Medicare for all.

“After years, Sanders is winning this debate,” Khanna said.

Khanna has said he supports Trump’s efforts to create a “Department of Government Efficiency” to cut wasteful federal spending. The president-elect appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramawamy to lead the effort and the pair was on Capitol Hill this week to discuss their plans.

Khanna told Raddatz that “they should look at the extraordinary waste,” examining Medicare and private health costs, as well as defense spending.

“I think when it comes to defense, getting better defense for value and cutting costs, there can be huge bipartisan cooperation,” said Khanna.

The congressman emphasized that cuts to Social Security, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Medicare should not be on the table.

Despite bipartisan calls to address federal spending, the United States’ debt stands at more than $36 trillion.

Khanna said he has communicated with Musk regarding his cost-cutting efforts and praised the SpaceX founder’s work with the Obama administration for the private sector to engage in space exploration.

Khanna was also asked about his thoughts on the looming possibility of a ban of TikTok in the U.S. unless it finds a new owner following a Federal Appeals Court ruling on Friday that rejected TikTok’s bid to overturn the law.

In previous interviews on “This Week,” Khanna spoke about his opposition to a bill that would require TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a ban.

“I don’t think it’s going to pass First Amendment scrutiny because I think there are less restrictive alternatives,” he told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl in April.

On Sunday, Khanna said he still believes that TikTok won’t face a ban, noting how many politicians themselves are on the platform.

“Let’s see where it goes with the Supreme Court,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday evening that House Republicans from across the conference struck a deal to raise the threshold for the motion to vacate — a procedure rank-and-file lawmakers can use to remove the speaker. The new agreement makes it harder to remove a speaker from the position.

The agreement would raise the threshold to force a vote on ousting a speaker from one member to nine members.

A one-member vote triggered the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and ultimately led to Johnson’s ascension to the speakership a little more than a year ago.

While the nine-member threshold makes it harder to oust a speaker, it does not completely remove the threat.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland and Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota — who negotiated the deal on Wednesday — appeared with Johnson at a press conference where they explained the change.

“We had an opportunity to set the motion to vacate at a higher than number one, that motion to vacate will be set at nine in return for getting rid of some amendments that probably would have divided this conference,” Johnson said.

He said the agreement allows Republicans to be “in a better position to move forward with the Republican agenda to make sure that Speaker Johnson, South Dakota Senate Leader John Thune and our President Donald Trump have an opportunity to go forward.”

“For me this is exactly how we’re supposed to come together,” Johnson said.

Harris said the change allows the conference to execute on Trump’s plans.

“We’ve been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us and move forward together to deliver on the President’s agenda. That’s it,” Harris said.

A little over a year ago, former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced a motion to remove McCarthy from the House speakership, plunging the chamber into chaos for weeks.

Earlier this year, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, threatening to oust Johnson just months after he ascended to the speakership. When she officially triggered a vote on her motion to oust Johnson, Democrats joined almost all Republicans to overwhelmingly reject her move.

House Republicans will are huddling Thursday morning where they’ll still have to ratify the agreement.

Johnson won the House Republican nomination Wednesday to stay on as the House’s top job. On Wednesday, he said he was “delighted” and “honored” to be the nominee for speaker, saying “we’ll head into Jan. 3 to make all that happen.”

The chamber will vote on their rules package for the 119th Congress on Jan. 3, 2025, following the election of the speaker on the floor.

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(WASHINGTON, D.C) — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in portions of a New York Times podcast interview published Friday, blamed Vice President Kamala Harris’ election loss on President Joe Biden’s late exit from the presidential race and the lack of Democratic primary.

Pelosi told Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a host of “The Interview,” that “had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” the paper said in a story about the Thursday interview. The exchange won’t be posted in full until Saturday.

“The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” Pelosi said.

“And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different,” she added.

As ABC News has reported, Pelosi worked behind the scenes to urge Biden to drop out of the presidential race following his performance at CNN’s debate.

The Times reported Pelosi also took issue with Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders saying, after Harris’ loss, that “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

“Bernie Sanders has not won,” she said. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families.”

The paper reported she suggested that cultural issues were more to blame for Democrats’ losses among working-class voters.

“Guns, God and gays — that’s the way they say it,” she reportedly said. “Guns, that’s an issue; gays, that’s an issue, and now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities; and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose.”

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