A6 ez re the washington post.saturday, november 16 , 2019
BY DANIELLE
DOUGLAS-GABRIELUnder threat of a subpoena, the
Trump administration agreed
Thursday to provide House Edu-
cation and Labor Committee
Chairman Rep. Robert C. “Bobby”
Scott (D-Va.) documents detailing
the Education Department’s han-
dling of student debt relief claims.
Committee aides say Scott had
already signed the subpoena and
alerted the department when he
received word that information
he asked for a year ago was en
route.
“We will closely review the doc-
uments we are receiving to ensure
that they are responsive to the
questions we have asked and pro-
vide the clarity that students de-
serve,” Scott said in a statement
Thursday. “We look forward to
discussing this information at a
hearing with the Secretary in the
near future.”
The request centers on the
Trump administration’s adher-
ence to a 1995 law, known as
borrower defense to repayment,
that protects students who are
defrauded by their colleges. Hun-
dreds of thousands of people who
attended primarily for-profit col-
leges have applied for debt for-
giveness under the law but have
yet to learn whether their claims
will be approved. The Trump ad-
ministration has not taken action
on any applications in a year,
citing ongoing litigation from for-
mer Corinthian Colleges stu-
dents.
Scott has gone back and forth
with the Education Department
for weeks to get Education Secre-
tary Betsy DeVos to publicly testi-
fy, with the dispute escalating to
threats of a subpoena. The depart-
ment said Mark A. Brown, who
heads the department’s student
aid office, could brief the commit-
tee or testify instead of DeVos. At
one point, DeVos wrote to Scott
suggesting they talk in person or
over the phone but reiterated that
Brown was best positioned to up-
date the committee.
“It’s unprecedented, and hon-
estly it’s counterproductive, for
House Democrats to demand a
hearing with the Secretary before
having had a briefing, let alone a
conversation, on the topic,” de-
partment spokeswoman Angela
Morabito said. “It’s also complete-
ly unreasonable that they won’t
accept hearing from the Depart-
ment’s operational lead on bor-
rower defense claims, Gen. Mark
Brown.”
Scott said Brown explicitly
stated during a meeting in May
that he was not empowered to
make decisions about discharg-
ing loans. Furthermore, Brown,
who was hired in March, was not
privy to conversations that laid
the foundation of the Trump ad-
ministration’s policy on debt re-
lief claims. Committee aides say
Brown was nevertheless invited
for a briefing Nov. 8 but never
showed, an assertion the Educa-
tion Department denies.
The administration’s debt can-
cellation policy landed in the
courts after Corinthian students
sued DeVos and the department
for granting partial relief using
earnings data from the Social Se-
curity Administration. A federal
judge said the Education Depart-
ment violated privacy laws by us-
ing the data to calculate loan
forgiveness and barred the strate-
gy.
The case resulted in DeVos be-
ing held in contempt Oct. 24 for
violating a court order to stop
collecting loan payments from
former students of the defunct
for-profit chain. A federal judge
imposed a $100,000 fine on the
Education Department, which
must use the money to compen-
sate the 16,000 people harmed by
the agency’s actions.
The Trump administration has
argued that the Corinthian case is
preventing it from taking action
on the applications and that noth-
ing can be done until the case is
resolved.
“The reality is: the facts are
incredibly complicated, and the
issue is further complicated by
multiple pending lawsuits. But it
doesn’t seem the Committee is
terribly interested in learning the
facts,” Morabito said. “A ny of our
proposals would get the Commit-
tee the information they’re seek-
ing — the only thing it wouldn’t
give Democrats is a show trial
with the media circus to match.”
[email protected]Education
agrees to
turn over
documents
House panel threatened
to subpoena files on
student debt relief claimsBY MICHAEL SCHERER
JOHN WAGNERFormer New York mayor Mike
Bloomberg, the billionaire busi-
nessman who is taking steps to
run for president, has launched a
$100 million digital ad campaign
attacking President Trump in the
battleground states expected to
determine next year’s election.
The effort will provide a signifi-
cant boost to Democratic efforts
— now totaling at least $325 mil-
lion in public commitments — to
keep the heat on Trump while
Democratic candidates battle
each other to win the party’s p res-
idential nomination.
“Our thinking is that the gener-
al election has already begun,”
said Jason Schechter, a
Bloomberg spokesman.
The outlay, which far exceeds
what any Democratic candidate
has raised or spent so far in the
race, adds to those of several other
outside groups who have devoted
money to early swing state cam-
paigns.
Priorities USA, an independent
Democratic nonprofit and super
PAC effort, has already spent
about $7 million of a $100 million
campaign for swing state anti-
Trump advertising during the pri-
maries. American Bridge, a group
that typically focuses on opposi-
tion research, launched a $3 mil-
lion campaign this week focused
on rural white voters as part of an
effort expected to reach $50 mil-
lion.
A third group, Acronym, which
is being advised by former Obama
campaign manager David Plouffe,
has announced plans for $75 mil-
lion in digital ads against Trump.
The money is intended to chal-
lenge the significant advantages
of incumbency in presidential
campaigns. Trump’s campaign
announced $156 million in cash
on hand at the end of September,
after raising $125 million in the
previous three months.
By contrast, the top fundrais-
ing Democratic presidential can-
didate, Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.), has raised less than
$75 million through the first three
quarters of the year. former vice
president Joe Biden, who has led
national nomination polls this
year, has raised less than $38 mil-
lion in the same nine months.
Trump has also dominated
Democratic candidates so far on
digital spending. On Facebook,
the Trump campaign and its affili-
ates have purchased $14.7 million
in ads this year, according to thesocial network, compared with
$5.45 million by South Bend, Ind.,
Mayor Pete Buttigieg and
$4.3 million by Sen. Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.).
Much of the early digital spend-
ing by candidates is focused on
prospecting for more campaign
donors, not on persuading swing
state voters. An analysis by Priori-
ties USA of recent Trump Face-
book ads found that 89 percent of
the messages were focused on
acquiring new donors and voter
information, including spots that
ask people to wish Trump a happy
birthday or buy campaign gear.
“Sometimes you spell ‘despera-tion’ d-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-s,” Tim Mur-
taugh, a spokesman for the
Trump campaign, said in re-
sponse to the news of the new
Bloomberg digital effort, which
was first reported by the New
York Times.
A pro-Trump independent ef-
fort, the America First Action su-
per PAC and an affiliated group,
has announced a fundraising goal
of $300 million for the 2020 cycle
to defend Trump in battleground
states. That spending is expected
to focus on Florida, Georgia,
North Carolina, Pennsylvania,
Ohio and Michigan.
In one Bloomberg ad providedto The Washington Post, Trump’s
Twitter feed is highlighted along
with the message: “A tweet
shouldn’t threaten our country’s
security.”
The digital campaign began
Friday, with plans for spending in
Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylva-
nia and Arizona, according to
Bloomberg aides. They said
Bloomberg will not appear in the
ads, which will nonetheless make
clear he paid for them.
“If Mike runs, it is because he
believes that Donald Trump is an
existential threat, and this dem-
onstrates his commitment to de-
feating him,” said Howard Wolf-
son, a senior adviser to
Bloomberg.
Bloomberg, one of the world’s
richest men, has taken several
steps to prepare for a bid for the
Democratic nomination, includ-
ing filing paperwork in states
with early deadlines to get on the
ballot. He has also been calling
top party officials to let them
know of his plans.
The move marks a major rever-
sal for Bloomberg, who an-
nounced in March that he would
not run for president. At the time,
he said he was “clear-eyed about
the difficulty of winning the Dem-
ocratic nomination” and would
instead focus on spending his
money in an effort to hurt
Trump’s chances in swing states.
But he and his advisers have
since concluded that there is a
possible route to the nomination
because of lingering divisions in
the field and the vulnerabilities of
the top-polling candidates.
T he decision to reconsider sig-
nals, among other things, a public
rebuke of Biden’s performance so
far. The former vice president has
attempted to build a coalition of
the same moderate Democrats
that Bloomberg would court.
[email protected]
[email protected]Bloomberg targets Trump in $100 million battleground ad buy
staton Breidenthal/arkansas democrat-gazette/associated Press
Mike Bloomberg talks with reporters Tuesday after filing paperwork in Little Rock to run in Arkansas.BY ANNIE LINSKEYAfter months of criticism from
Democratic leaders and voters,
Sen. Elizabeth Warren offered a
new approach to her Medicare-
for-all proposal Friday, adding an
intermediate step that would let
Americans participate in an op-
tional government-run health
plan before she attempted to pass
a mandatory program.
Under Warren’s new plan,
which she calls a “Medicare for
All option,” all Americans would
be eligible to participate in Medi-
care, but no one would have to.
She would push for this initiative
in her first 100 days in the White
House, then make a separate ef-
fort to pass Medicare-for-all later
in her first term.
It’s a clear shift for the senator
from Massachusetts as she at-
tempts to ward off criticism that
her single-payer health plan is
unrealistic substantively and tox-
ic politically. Warren for months
had signaled a full-throated em-
brace of Medicare-for-all, and
this new approach significantly
tempers that urgency.
That may ultimately better po-
sition Warren for a contest with
President Trump if she is the
Democratic nominee. But on Fri-
day it prompted an immediate
backlash from her centrist rivals
as well as liberal activists.
Kate Bedingfield, deputy cam-
paign manager for former vice
president Joe Biden, called War-
ren’s maneuvering “a full pro-
gram of flips and twists,” while
Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.)
said she was “backtracking,” and
Lis Smith, spokeswoman for
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete
Buttigieg, accused her of trying to
“paper over a very serious policy
problem.”
On the left, activists sounded
the alarm that Warren’s two-step
approach could halt momentum
for Medicare-for-all, potentially
torpedoing that goal.
“Doing this in stages creates a
political danger and an opening
for opponents to prevent further
progress,” said Adam Gaffney,
president of Physicians for a Na-
tional Health Program. “The lon-
ger the rollout, the more political
risk.”
But Warren suggested that her
approach was the best of both
worlds, providing immediate re-
lief for many Americans without
giving up the goal of a universal,
government-run program.
“By the end of my first 100
days, we will have opened the
door for tens of millions of Ameri-
cans to get high-quality Medicare
for All coverage at little or no
cost,” Warren wrote in a Medium
post. “But I won’t stop there.
Throughout my t erm, I’ll fight for
additional health system re-
forms.”
She said she hopes voters will
be able to “see for themselves”
that their experience with Medi-
care is better than with private
insurance, building support for
Medicare-for-all.
Experts and rivals portrayed
the move as a retreat from one of
Warren’s highest-profile policy
positions on a matter that’s of top
importance to many voters. Her
position arguably now resembles
the “public option” favored by
many of her centrist competitors:
a proposal that would allow
Americans to choose a govern-
ment-run program if they want-
ed, rather than the mandatory
approach favored by Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.).
“It’s much less disruptive,” s aid
Kenneth Thorpe, a health-care
expert at Emory University. “It’s
in the same spirit as offering a
public option.”
Sanders, accepting an endorse-
ment Friday from the largest
nurses union in the country, at-
tacked Warren’s approach as a
postponement in the fight
against a rapacious health-care
industry. “Some people say we
should delay that fight for a few
more years — I don’t think so,” he
said. “We are ready to take them
on right now, and we’re going to
take them on on Day One.”
Warren’s team is particularly
sensitive to how Sanders’s votersperceive her proposal, since she
hopes to pick up their support
should he drop out of the race.
“Fundamentally, the question
that will prove the wisdom or the
failure of the whole calculation is:
Is she still close enough” t o Sand-
ers?, said one person familiar
with the Warren campaign’s
thinking, who spoke on the con-
dition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to discuss
details of the campaign.
“If she’s the nominee — or if
people have to decide to rally
between one of the two of them —
has she stayed close enough that
people think, ‘It’s not exactly Ber-
nie, but it’s pretty darn close’?”
Medicare-for-all has become a
major test for Warren, who has
steadily risen in the polls after a
rocky start. As her candidacy has
gained momentum, she’s faced
increasing scrutiny over how
she’d p ay f or the program without
raising middle-class taxes.
Leaders in her own party have
also questioned whether she
could withstand attacks in a gen-
eral election accusing her of elim-
inating the private health insur-
ance industry and taking insur-
ance away from more than
150 million people.
Those concerns deepened this
month when Warren proposed a
$20.5 trillion financing plan for
Medicare-for-all, mostly in the
form of new taxes. Critics said it
would result in a tax hike on the
middle class — something she
denied — while academics saidher cost assumptions were far too
optimistic.
Warren’s team carefully laid
the groundwork for Friday’s pro-
posal, reaching out to selected
allies, which paid off in some
quarters. Ady Barkan, an influen-
tial advocate for Medicare-for-all,
said the transition plan is “smart
politics and good policy.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-
Wash.), who introduced the
House version of a Medicare-for-
all bill, called it a “smart ap-
proach.”
Centrist Democrats’ angst over
Warren’s momentum is one rea-
son why former New York mayor
Mike Bloomberg is considering
entering the presidential race
and why former Massachusetts
governor Deval Patrick recently
launched his candidacy.
Patrick, on his first full day
campaigning Thursday, contrast-
ed Warren’s h ealth-care approach
with his.
“We kept learning as we went,
and I think that’s what’s going to
have to happen for any of the big
solutions,” he said, recalling how
Massachusetts officials expanded
health care in the state. “I want us
to have an ambitious agenda. I
want that. That is the goal. The
means for getting there can vary.”
Warren’s transition proposal is
similar to the plan Buttigieg has
outlined, which he calls “Medi-
care for all who want it.” Under
that idea, Medicare would be
open to the poor and would pro-
vide subsidies to middle-incomefamilies.
“This is definitely Warren inch-
ing over toward Buttigieg and
away f rom Bernie on health care,”
opined Nate Silver, editor in chief
of the politics website FiveThir-
tyEight.
Warren has provided more de-
tails than Buttigieg, saying she
would immediately offer free
health care to about half the
country, including all children
and poor families. She would also
lower the eligibility age for Medi-
care to 50 and let young people
buy into “a true Medicare for All
option.”
The person close to Warren’s
campaign said she had not ex-
pected Medicare-for-all to be-
come such a critical issue in the
presidential race. In the early
spring, all the major Democratic
contenders aside from Biden sig-
naled support for it, but a back-
lash has prompted several candi-
dates to back away.
“It wasn’t really clear that we
were going to be spending the fall
drilling down on the details of her
[health-care] plan,” said the per-
son close to Warren.
“They wanted to make sure
they were stapling themselves to
Medicare-for-all,” the person
said. “But it wasn’t clear that
there was going to be much more
to it then advocating for Bernie’s
plan.”
[email protected]Jeff stein and david Weigel
contributed to this report.In a shift, Warren proposes a Medicare-for-all ‘option’
sarah rice/getty images
After officially filing to be on the ballot in New Hampshire, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) greets supporters Wednesday in Concord.Plan would delay making
program mandatory;
critics see it as retreatUPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws