And good afternoon, everybody. I'm Todd Lable here at the World Headquarters of Civic Media
in Madison, Wisconsin. It is six minutes past the hour of one o'clock. Welcome into our
special coverage of President Joe Biden visiting Madison, Wisconsin. A presidential visit.
I'm here. Madison Studios joined by Maggie Don, host the Ma Ma Maggie Don show every afternoon
following our show from two until four at our Waukeshaw Studios in Waukeshaw, Wisconsin.
And on the ground, we will hopefully talk to Luke Mathers, our executive producer in a bit. He is
in the room as they say at Madison College, more commonly known as Madison Area Technical College,
on the east side of Madison. President Biden here in town to announce over 30 million
Americans will receive student loan forgiveness or relief. The president's set to make remarks soon
when you understand from Luke that you are a senator Tammy Baldwin is on the day is now about
to introduce the president. Maggie Don, good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. A big day for a
presidential visit in Wisconsin. Yeah, happy to be here, Todd. Thanks for letting me jump on with you.
Excited to hear about this plan. Of course, we understand that the first flight at the apple,
if you will, ended with the Supreme Court saying no sir. So they're going through a rulemaking
process now. And this is I believe putting some meat on the bones as to what they're proposing
under the Higher Education Act in terms of loan forgiveness should be exciting. Yeah, the plans
if implemented according to the Biden administration would provide debt relief to over 30 million
Americans when combined with actions under the Biden Harris administration has already taken on
to cancel student loan forgiveness over the past three years. I know that we've talked on our show.
I think you've discussed on your show as well that there's a bit of controversy from some people
because there are some people out there. Well, why didn't I have my loans forgiven? But I think
for a lot of people out there who I'll use the term duped as an attorney, you could correct me.
But I think there were a lot of people that I know one young person, not so young anymore,
but was went to a school in Minnesota. I won't name it was not a state school. It was a private
school and has a very low rating in the legal system. And she racked up over a hundred thousand
dollars of debt. And was she gone out? She couldn't pass the bar to be an attorney. And when you have
situations like that, I think where people have been duped, I think some loan forgiveness is healthy
to get them back into the economy and participating in our society. Yeah, we could do an entire show,
talk about the programs really expensive and folks take.
And Maggie, we have a little bit of, we'll have our producers kind of work on this a little bit,
your, your connection is cutting out. And, and interesting, as Luca, the matter's
checked it a while ago. And I've been to some presidential visits before I coordinated one back
in 2004 for a former president, George W. Bush back in my Republican days, again, I left the
party in 2011. But what happens is you get so many people in the room, both people participating
as audience members, but press as well, security. And oftentimes what can happen to these things is
the service, the cell service internet is just overloaded. Sometimes it's it's security reasons
that that's done. So sometimes in these things, you know, communication is not always what it
would like to be, but we'll reestablish connection there with Maggie in in Waukeshaw. And we
await president Joe Biden coming to the days here in Madison, Wisconsin, understand that Tammy
Baldwin is on the day. And I think in the last hour on our show, we were talking about this,
this at least we have to recognize there is a faction of the more progressive side of the
Democratic Party, who is frustrated with the Biden administration or their policies in in Gaza,
reportedly protest going on on the east side of Madison right now. But then, you know, it's
important to note that Joe Biden has made it here. He's talking to people. He's listening. And
also I think it's important to note that people like Tammy Baldwin, US Senator and people like Mark
Polkan, Congressman Polkan in particular has been outspoken on what's happening in in Gaza and
Palestine. He was there today. He was on the day is endorsing and being with president Biden.
So I think it's important that we note that leadership like Mark Polkan, like US Senator,
Tammy Baldwin are there and in support of president Biden. Maggie Don, back in Waukeshaw,
I believe our connection has been reestablished. So that's just one of these days. There's a lot of
excitement with presidential visits, but sometimes it kind of wreaks havoc with the traffic and
communication. Oh, indeed, living in the downtown Milwaukee area, it's always I do have to plan
around presidential and vice presidential and candidate visits that is for sure. That's
basic that the brewers gamer about all it can gum up the works in Milwaukee when it comes to traffic.
You don't have one of those two things going on your 30 minutes from the south side to the
northest, most points over the county. I love that about Milwaukee. Yeah, it's an exciting moment.
I think we're going to see more and more of these visits, not just from Biden, but from vice
president Harris. And I think more and more surrogates, I would expect to see a former president
Obama visit, maybe even a little Bill Clinton citing before the cycle is over this year.
I think from a political standpoint, Maggie, I agree disagree. I think it's really important that
unlike in 2016, when the Hillary Clinton campaign got a lot of grief post election for kind of
doing a flyover and taking Wisconsin and other rust belt steaks like Pennsylvania and Michigan for
granted, that does not seem to be repeating itself. The Democratic Party or in particular, the Biden
campaign president Biden was up in superior. We were up there covering that giving a billion
dollars for the bridge between the superior and Duluth. Vice president Harris was in
Milwaukee, Sean not too long ago talking about women's reproductive rights. And now we have
president Biden back in the state in Madison. It seems that though they understand the message
that they have to be here to earn the votes of Wisconsinites. Yeah, that was such a galactic
miss for Clinton back in 2016, frankly, an embarrassment from those that were running her
campaign taught, I would say. And so it's good to see places like Wisconsin, but Pennsylvania, Ohio,
as well, frankly, getting there do. These are the sorts of voters that I think are really canaries
in the coal mine, if you will, that you got to win Wisconsin folks. And if you don't, you probably
won't be seeing the White House come January of 2025. It's really that simple, both for my think a
mood of the election perspective, as well as just the brass tax electoral math. We just got done
doing Trevy Olsen the Lincoln project and I we did a little tour around Wisconsin last week
when Richland Center lacrosse of Claire, Steven's point and Green Bay. And I think one of the big
takeaways brought for me, Maggie was as we await president of Biden's remarks here in Madison
was the fact that people want a cheerleader, not just from Wisconsin, but for the United States.
I can't think of a better cheerleader that comes with positive messages of hope than Joe Biden.
Yeah, I think his state of the union was emblematic of that. One of the things that I just by
again, way of comparison is I ask people often what's really important to you if you had to pick one
or two things that's really important to you that you think will make the difference in your
family's life and of your in your kids life. And can you tell me what the policy of the two candidates
that feed into that hope or vision that you have for your family and the reality is none of us
is we're never going to be able to find a perfect candidate right that checks every box that we
have on every issue. That person doesn't exist. It's a figment of our imagination.
But really when when I hear president Biden speak, whether it's about
student loan forgiveness and this is a very different plan, we can talk about some of the details.
It basically has some income requirements. It's targeting interest on some of the loans,
but again, whether we're talking about student loan forgiveness, the right to choose and select
healthcare for yourself and your family, jobs plan, etc. One guy's actually got some plans and
some policies. He doesn't want it's a little hard to pin down. So very true. We're waiting
for President Joe Biden on the east side of Madison. He is here for a presidential visit.
Our executive producer of civic media, Luke Mathers is on the scene. He is in the room to
gymnasium at Madison College. Luke, we appreciate you making contact and other cell services
a bit spotty. Luke, what is the read of the room right now? Where are we at?
Yeah, we we have a pretty jam packed full gymnasium here. We've got the governor of the
Wisconsin, Tony Gevers, just concluded his remarks. Not too long ago, we also heard from
Congressman Mark Fokan here representing the second district, which is the district here in
Madison. And then Madison may or something around Conway as well, all days in remarks.
We've got Secretary of State. Sarah got Lucy here. We've got a number of other democratic
officials from the State House as well in attendance. So the room is filling up. We've got
formerly Senate governor Mandela Barnes and a variety of other folks here now. I believe we're
just waiting on Senator Tammy Baldwin and the president himself, Joe Biden, to speak to you
if there are remarks. I think it's really important that you went down that list, Luke, and talked
about all the Democrats, the elected Democrats of Wisconsin. Who are there? Who are supporting Joe Biden?
Who are endorsing him? Because I know there's going to be a narrative written after this going
into tomorrow's news cycle that, oh, there's a problem with Joe Biden. But I mean, you wouldn't see
Mark Pokan. You wouldn't see Tammy Baldwin. You wouldn't see Sarah Gowlosky. All these other people
you mentioned being there to endorse and uplift Joe Biden, if you really had a large problem.
So I think it's fantastic that you have this, this majority of Democrats, so they're on site.
Yeah, there are a lot of different activists and elected officials here for Democratic Party.
But there's also a lot of students and the educators here at Madison College that are really
invested in the fact that we have a student loan crisis and President Joe Biden is working
to enact policies to address that. And so you can definitely tell that there's some concrete
action being taken on the policy front here. Even though it's an election year, it doesn't feel
a whole lot like a campaign event. It feels a lot like excitement around the president coming
into delivering. We are waiting in the special coverage of President Joe Biden's
presidential visit to the east side of Madison. I've joined by Maggie Don, host the Maggie Don
show for our studios in a walkie-shot. And look, matter is executive producer of civic media
on site at Madison College. Luke is, as we on Tuesdays, we have Tuesday days of Luke and we
joke around about it. Like to be a hard time that I'm almost double your age as a younger person
who just had a 30th birthday or much closer to some people who have student loans than I am,
explain to people just with your perspective, friends that you might know as someone who is a
graduate of UW-Madison. What would you say to people who are a little bit salty about, you know,
people who get their loans forgiven, explain from a younger perspective what this means to people
economically to have these loans forgiven? Well, first and foremost, I mean, I know gentlemen
or ladies of your age as well that they're suffering with a student loan crisis. What's not
like this is just a young person's problem. There are Americans and Wisconsinites around the country
from all age ranges. This is a cross-generational problem. And yes, younger folks are burdening
a large amount of this problem because we've only seen tuition increases, skyrocket over the
last 10-20 years. But if somebody who paid off their student loan debt, I don't understand the
mindset of the belief that just because they paid their loans off, you should be angry
about a program enacted like this. It's very interesting to take that mindset. I mean,
when you go through something tough, I don't think other people should necessarily have to go
through that as well. But it is something that my little brother is suffering with student loan debt
and I'm over the moon if there can be a distance to him in that regard. But this isn't just a young
person's problem. The student debt is an issue of cross-stage groups and generations.
Maggie Don, host of Maggie Don, show we're awaiting the President Joe Biden's live remarks
from the east side of Madison right now. I'm waiting for him to go to the day as Maggie Don.
You spent much of your career as a lawyer in Milwaukee. I'm not sure exactly how much criminal
law you've done or that sort of thing. But if you look at people having to file for bankruptcy,
if you look at people having to struggle with housing, if you look at people having to struggle
with their financial perspective, a lot of this I think at times comes from this burden of student
loans. It seems to me if we want to reinvigorate the economy, if we want people being able to
to purchase and to be able to afford a home, that this is just the right thing to do if you want
to help the economy. Yeah, I think this is the talking points on it don't really tell the story,
especially with this current plan that the President is proposing, which has some income
qualifications. Their targeting basically interest on student loans, that's the universally
the universally available assistance. So if you've got interest on student loans regardless
of income, that can be canceled. But then the broader forgiveness catalyst that they have in
this plan, those are all income based or hardship based. And specifically to your point, Todd,
some of the hardships articulated in this plan have to deal with medical debt and childcare.
And if we look and we zoom out and we look at what is really challenging for folks that are hard
working middle class, people just like you and I, it's when you compound things like an unexpected
medical expense that's sizable, plus the explosion in childcare expenses and housing, which has
gotten for all intents and purposes more expensive over the last 10 years for everybody.
And if you are then carrying a significant amount of student loan debt, that debt can really
basically push some people that are living and I don't mean paycheck to paycheck in a sense.
But folks that are finding it hard to make their dollars cover all those fixed expenses if you
will. Again, I think that it's really smart for the Biden administration to have a piece of this
that is specifically targeted towards families that are enduring financial hardships because of
childcare and or medical debt. These things are what are holding middle class folks back,
what are hampering small businesses. And frankly, when you compare our system of how we fund
higher education with our neighbor and and and comparable countries in Western Europe, we're
anomalous. We stand out in most other Western European countries. If you can get into college and
you wish to go, there is a public financing structure that covers that for you. So you do not have
people coming out of college with degrees that basically end up living hand to mouth because they
can't afford their student loan debt. You're listening to special coverage of President Joe Biden's
visit to Madison, Wisconsin. He will be at Madison, Madison College. He'll be speaking soon.
Maggie Don, the Maggie Don show joins us for our studios at WAUK. The Shaw in Waukeshaw Luke
Mathers executive producer of civic media joins us from the site at Madison College. Luke,
a couple of things stand out to me one that he chose Madison College to do this. Of course,
many people don't buy Madison area technical college that to Maggie's point, look,
not everybody is meant to have a four year liberal arts degree and that the trades are important.
And I think it's important that Joe Biden recognize that and shows to make this announcement today
at Madison College. Also, according to the Biden press release on this, this group of borrowers
that he is targeting today with this announcement are single borrowers who earn 120,000 dollars or
less or less. So this is not people who are our millionaires or are making a lot of money
who are getting their loans in part or the interest for given. This is targeted towards working
people, many of whom may have gone to a technical school and in the trades. I think that's a
signal, Luke, that President Biden is looking at working people.
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's going to be very interesting to see, because we know
as we will do the two where it does one year mark, the Supreme Court said that the Biden administration
could not take action on this crisis, the way he initially wanted to. And so this targeted approach
is going to be very interesting to see how it is received and how it can hopefully move forward
to us. Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't look at it. I keep the voice down right now because I believe
the press people are going to introduce President Biden throughout the day now, Ashley Stark
for Burlington, Wisconsin. And Maggie, I'm not sure if you've ever been a presidential visit
like this, but this is like kind of the cool thing. I don't really care which party it is. When
the president comes to town and you get to have just working people, common people do this,
this is a once in a lifetime thing. I think it's pretty darn cool.
Yeah, I've seen a couple of presidents in person. I've seen a couple of folks that nearly
became president in person. And it's always exciting. I think again, no matter what side of the
aisle you may come from being at these kinds of events and basically participating in our democratic
processes is a really wonderful opportunity for folks. And again, the frequency with which you'll
see Joe Biden and his opponent and the vice president in Wisconsin, that's only going to increase
over these coming months. Everybody will get a shot probably to see Joe or his opposition or vice
president Harris at some point between I went, November, he's going to be all over the place.
Yeah. And I want to make your travel plans accordingly as we were saying. It almost feels like
Wisconsin is becoming the general election version of Iowa and the primaries. I mean, you might
walk into a coffee shop and you're going to see a presidential candidate.
Miss Katie's diner always a favorite stop of candidates and presidents on Milwaukee's
downtown east side. Yeah. And I've I've layered in Milwaukee for a very long time, but I also
layered in New York for many, many years at a big white shoe law firm. And to your point, Todd,
about how this impacts working folks, there were, listen, I sort of worked at the top of the
the hill when it comes to or the apex of the profession, the hoidy, toidy lawyers in New York.
And I worked abroad for a long time. I knew people that were struggling with student loan debt
and making a lot of money in those places. So I think this this more surgical approach in this
student loan forgiveness plan makes a lot of sense. Again, targeting interest on a universal basis,
but thing more broad forgiveness is really capped out at those single borrowers making 120,000
dollars or less they're going through the rulemaking process. This is not by executive order. It's
not unilateral in this sense. It's a rulemaking process process under the Higher Education Act.
And they are about to move into the receiving of comment. This is the nerdy stuff that everybody
studies in law school, the old administrative law course. And here we go. I'm going to interrupt you
for a second. President Joe Biden is in Madison, Wisconsin. Hale to the Chief is being played. He
has coming to the day as now. He has been greeted by Ashley Stark, who introduced him in a
natty blue suit. Here's President Biden.
Please have a seat. You have one.
Gov, thank you. Thank you for the nice introduction. Thank you, Ashley, for introducing me and sharing
your story. I like an awful lot of people in this audience. It was the first of my family to go
to college and watch my dad struggle to help me get there and get all the kids there. And it
wasn't easy. But you know, I ask the rhetorical question, how can we be the leading country in the
world without the best education system in the world and access to it? You and Sam are from
rural Wisconsin, first in your families to go to college. Life partners, business partners,
hardworking, paying off your loans, only to see your dreams being crushed by student debt.
But now, thanks to what we're doing, that student debt is no longer holding you back.
With this new freedom, you started your own business. It helps women and minority
own businesses right here in Wisconsin. That's what this is all about.
I think we're all in this room, share one goal. Give everybody a fair shot. Just a shot.
Freeing them to chase their dreams. You know, you've got some of the great leaders in Wisconsin
here as well. And I mean that sincerely. I think Tony knows this. Your governor, I think he's
one of the best governors in the United States. Not just Tony.
Well progress we've made and we made a lot is no small part because of Tony.
And the bad news for Tony is we become friends.
And Mark, thank you representative. Thanks for the passport to get in the district. I appreciate it.
You're doing a hell of a job. And Madison Mayor, thank you. Where's she? There you go. Stand up.
I get instructions from my wife who's a school teacher. She said, make sure you say low to the
mayor. I really like being with her. Thank you mayor for taking care of her.
And the state and local tribal leaders here today, thanks for making it available.
Where are you? There you stand up to. Thank you. And by the way, it's Indian nations.
Well she couldn't be here. I'm always grateful for one of the best senators in the United States
Senate. Tammy Baldwin. She really is. She's a great partner in education. Infrastructure of
Buy American so much more. She's done so much. And when Kamala and I ran this lead county,
we made a commitment to fix our broken student loan system. Because while college degree still
is a ticket to the middle class, that ticket's becoming much too expensive, much too expensive.
In fact, things are a lot different from when college tuition was more affordable and barred
for colleges repaying those loans was more reasonable. Today, too many Americans, especially young
people with several unsustainable debts, it exchanged for college degree. The ability for working
in middle class folks to repay their student loans has become so burdensome that a lot can't
repay it for even decades after being in school. And I mean that sincerely, many of you know
that sitting in front of me. Even when they have worked hard and paid their student loans,
their debt increases, not diminishes. Too many people feel the strain and stress wondering if
they're going to get married, have their first child, start a family, because even if they get
by, they still have this crushing, crushing debt. That's not just the drag on them. It's a drag on
our local economies. It's a drag on, no, it really is. It's a drag on the economies. When you can't
afford to buy a home, start that small business, chase that career that you've been dreaming about
for a long time. That's why I earlier, my term, I announced a major plan to provide more than 40
million working in middle class American student debt relief. Tens of millions.
Tens of millions of people's debt was literally about to get canceled, but then some of my Republican
friends elected officials and special interest suit us in the Supreme Court block this. But that didn't
stop us. No, I mean it sincerely. We continue to find alternatives past to reduce student debt
opinions. That are not challenging it. And all together, my administration has taken the most
significant action to provide student debt relief ever in the history of this country.
We started by fixing two existing programs to get more people student debt relief than they're
that they were entitled to. First, we fixed what was called the Public Service Long Forgiveness
program, which is designed to make sure those in public service schoolteers, police officers,
firefighters, social workers, faith leaders, public servants, you get the student loan for
given in 10 years if they've made their payments for those first 10 years. And after 10 years
in the student in public service, they would have their loan forgiven. When I took off,
a 7,000 public service had their debt, 7,000 had their debts forgiven. The program wasn't working
very well. So I called in the Department of Education and other departments and we got to fix this
and fix it now. Thanks to our reform, nearly 900,000 have had their debts forgiven.
Including 16,400 right here in Wisconsin.
Second, return what's called the income driven repayment program, which I've renamed the
SAFE program, the most affordable repayment plan ever. Before I took office, student bars had to
pay 10% of their discretionary income on a monthly basis from what they borrowed. 10%
discretionary income. That's income after you pay necessities like housing and food. A lot of
people didn't have the means to pay 10%. So I was able to admire my authority. You have the
Department cut that to 5% for undergraduate loans. Now that means no one's under graduate loans
whether a community college or four year college have to pay more than 5% of the discretionary
income to repay those loans starting in July. Starting in July this year. And for millions of
borrowers who make less than $32,000 a year now after they're out, their monthly student payments
will be dropped to zero as long as they're dead. Really? And already, close to 8 million
Americans have enrolled in the SAFE plan, including 135,000 here in Wisconsin.
Because of our reform, 25,000 people a month nationwide have been receiving letters for me about
their debt they had for four years, for all those years is finally going to be forgiven. But I'm
not stopping here. Today, I'm proud to announce five major actions to continue to relieve student
debt from more than 30 million Americans since I started my administration. First,
my administration will propose a new rule to cancel up to $20,000 and run away interest for any
borrower that owes more now than when they started paying the loan. That's a big difference.
And for low and middle class families enrolled in my SAFE program will cancel all of your interest,
all of your interest. Second, we plan to cancel student debt for bars. There's still all
student loans, even though they started repaying them more than two decades ago. Folks, third,
we plan to cancel debt for about two million borrowers who would be eligible for debt forgiveness
through the SAFE program. Public service loan or forgiveness or other debt canceling program,
but are not enrolled in these programs. Some of you are only finding out after the fact you're
as a teacher, a firefighter, a cop, that you qualify, but you just didn't know about it before.
And now people are, but you're eligible no matter how long it's been, you've been out of the program.
Fourth, we plan to cancel debt for bars with the Department of Education determines
we're cheated by universities that left students and not affordable loans that
delivered a little of benefits to students. And you know one of those, you know one of those
colleges was closed, I won't mention. And finally, the Department of Education will propose a new
role to cancel student debt for Americans facing financial hardships from child care to health care
to prevent them from paying back their loans. And over the coming months, the Department of
Education will propose and then implement these plans. And 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.
I can tell by the looks of some of your faces, this relief is not news to you all,
because this relief can be life changing, life changing, just as you heard from Ashley. Folks,
I will never stop to deliver student debt relief in hard work in Americans and it's only
in the interest of America that we do it. And again, it's for the good of our economy,
it's growing stronger and stronger and it is. By freeing millions of Americans from this crushing
debt of student debt, it means they can finally get on with their lives instead of being put,
their lives being put on hold. That's why every American making a student loan payment should go to
studenta.gov, studenta.gov to learn more about these plans and see if you're an enemy fit for you.
Look, that's not all. People say to me it's great you're helping people in the college. How about
all those hard work and people grew up and had no opportunity to go to college? I get it. That's
the neighborhood I come from. That's why a big part of my economic agenda is investing in all
Americans, whether you attend college or not. We're expanding career and technical education
at high schools. We think how many of these shop programs have been dropped, people not knowing
whether they want to work with their hands. I think without being able to get started. To provide
pathways to good middle-class jobs without college, my labor department is investing $200 million
grants for registered apprenticeship programs around the country.
So fork folks can learn skill trade, and by the way, parenthetically,
you know all the money the chips program I put together, well guess what? It's going to invest
over $50 billion in new programs, new ability to make these chips here in America. And
those fabs they call them, guess what? You know what the average salary is? $110,000. You don't need
a college degree. But you need a skill. Programs like the one that taught right here at Madison
Technical College lead good paying jobs and high growth fields and clean energy, healthcare
technology. These apprenticeship programs are four and five years before you qualify to have
a license. I love people saying, well why are you so pro-union, pro-labor? A lot of people think
you can walk up and say, I want to be electrician. And you're electrician. Five years of friendship.
It's like going to college. Five years. I also want to make, and I've been pushing this,
and if I'm re-elected, I'm going to push it hard. I'm going to get it done next time.
Is I want to make community college tuition free.
So you don't need loans at all. You're cutting half the cost of going to college.
If we do this, the economic gains will far outweigh the cost. And that's not hyperbole. That's
the truth. This is an addition to the historic investments we're making to monitor our infrastructure.
Roads, bridges, high speed internet, clean water for every American. We need more qualified people
doing this work. To bring back manufacturing, back to America, to build new factories in your
communities. And I'm investing in an American agenda we expect to create millions of jobs
over the next decade. We're already created over 15 million new jobs, 15 million new jobs.
And a significant number of these do not require college degree, including across Wisconsin.
Let me close with this. My dad used to say, and that's not hyperbole. My dad was a hard working
guy, a really well-read man, got into college. He's from Baltimore. They say everybody thinks
it's Baltimore. It's Baltimore. He's from Baltimore. He's got into college to go to Johns Hopkins.
I didn't know that until after he passed away, but it was during the war, just prior to the war,
he was working on the shipyard. And he couldn't go. But he used to always, hey, I had this phrase.
He said, Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about
respect. It's about having a place in the community where you, in fact, feel like you belong.
It's about being able to look at your kid in the eye and say, honey, it's going to be okay.
That's what we're doing. We're giving people a chance to make it. Not a guarantee, just a chance to make it.
That's why I've never been more optimistic about our future. We just have to remember who we are.
We are the United States of America, and there's nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together,
nothing, nothing, nothing. God bless you all, and may God protect our troops. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
The remarks of President Joe Biden, who is here in Madison, Wisconsin on the east side of town at Madison
College, better known as Madison Area Technical College for an official presidential visit on the
day is there. And we go to Maggie Don on the Maggie Don show from our studios in walkie-shock to be
joined, hopefully in a bit by Luke Mathers, who is on the scene and in the room there in the
gymnasium at Madison College. Maggie, a speech that lasted about 15, 20 minutes or so. What are your
initial takeaways? I'm excited about what the president had to say, and I thought he framed this
up really well. Loved the fact that he talked about technical colleges or community college
tuition and the aim to make that free. He talked about apprentice ships for those that don't go
the traditional four-year college route. He talked about targeting and helping people that effectively
had, I forget the exact phrasing, let me look it up here, attended a college or university
whose degree did not provide them with, quote, sufficient financial value. In other words,
folks that come out, saddled with that and frankly can't get a job even though they've got that
degree. So I thought it was a very working middle-class focused speech. You always know who Joe Biden
is, right? There's never any doubt. He shows up as the same person every time and leans into his
middle-class roots. And I think it just worked well. I thought, again, the particulars of this
proposal I think will have more broad appeal than did the original bite at the apple. And that's
really critical. I think this is a very sellable and workable proposal. The second thing that stood
out to me is he made the linkage explicit. We will grow our economy, we will support businesses,
we will have enough folks to hire in our businesses by doing this and that overall the cost of
these forgiveness plans and proposals will be less than the economic gains to our economy and to
our businesses. And that's the whole point. In other words, not what's in the immediate term,
but how will this move forward regular families in the United States and hope us all do better
together in the future? You're listening to coverage of President Joe Biden's official visit to
Madison, Wisconsin today. Here in a official capacity to announce this policy, this higher
ed policy, but was actually so much more which kind of struck me. I'm joined by Maggie Donne
host, the Maggie Donne show for a walkie-shot studios. Luke Madder is our executive producer,
has been on the scene there at Madison College this afternoon. I was impressed by the president,
Maggie. And to your point, I think he started out by saying, well, look, this is a lot of a business.
Not just my education and about helping women in business, helping minorities in business,
helping everybody, a small business owner. It doesn't matter your gender, your ethnicity.
This is about helping people who are going to be business job creators in the state of Wisconsin
by helping them get rid of some of this. This interest rates in their student loans, 40 million
people according to President Biden here in Madison today, 40 million folks affected by what he
is proposing today. And so much of it are people who make under or what are the people he mentioned,
or the groups of people who are making under $32,000 a year, their payments would drop to 0%.
I know people. And the president talked about this, people who may have been duped into going into
higher ed, where they probably or maybe shouldn't have gone, they just wasn't for them. And there is
saddle is debt. They're making less than $32,000 a year now. I mean, these are working class people
who are just trying to get by as you've said, make a house payment, make a rent payment payment.
So this is not some giveaway to the rich. This is for working folks.
Well, and the group of people that just screams to the top of my mind are teachers.
Yeah. In general in Wisconsin, we do a decent job of compensating teachers.
But in other states, teachers who have been on the job for 10, 15, 20 years, in many states,
don't crack $40,000 a year. Absolutely. And if you're screaming at your radio going,
what are you talking about? In a lot of the rural south, in parts of Appalachia,
public school and private school teachers, even if they've been on the job for a long time,
not making more than $40,000 a year. Of course, you've got to have a college degree to get that job.
And so there are other groups of employees like that, but to serve bring it full circle,
right? We're talking about education. And it's important to drive our economy to help build
a strong group of small business owners to encourage entrepreneurship to drive innovation.
That requires an educated workforce. It requires a great technically educated workforce.
It requires a vibrant community college system. And it's not lost to me, as you mentioned,
and emphasized how that he did this at Madison College, not to be confused with also Milwaukee
area technical college. We have a really robust community college and technical college system
in the state of Wisconsin. And I love the fact that he painted with a broad brush here,
trying to reach every demographic and every group of people that at points will struggle with
these sorts of loans. Continuing coverage of President Joe Biden's visit, which just wrapped up
at Madison College on Madison's east side here, a presidential visit. Our old Luke Madderis
Civic Media's executive producer was in the room about a minute left here before the break,
Luke, will come back to you afterwards. But give us your initial knee jerk reaction.
What, how did the room receive this? Then what were your thoughts after listening to President
Biden and Madison today? The president was well received by the crowd here. The remarks were
fairly brief, but he touched on a lot of the different aspects for the five different executive
actions that his administration is going to take when it comes to this problem addressing
Wisconsinites and Americans as a whole. And I think there was very well received here in Madison,
had Madison College. See, how many folks just guessed a meeting, how many people in the room,
are they control that? But how big was the crowd that they led in today?
Oh, I'm not very good at estimating those numbers. I'm sorry to ask you from math on the air,
my bad. Maybe roughly 200, 300 folks. But again, I'm not great at that.
No, and that's to be expected. Again, these presidential visits are oftentimes invited
folks, only especially for official presidential visits like that. But it seemed like watching it
and listening to it. It seemed like people were energetic, were enthused, and well received.
So we'll come back on the other side, talk about Luke Madderis, who is on scene force at Madison
College. Talk to Maggie Don, who is our studio is in Waukeshaw. This is a continuing coverage
from civic media of the presidential visit of Joe Biden back after this on the town I'll
both show with the civic media very network.
And welcome back to special coverage of President Joe Biden's presidential visit to Madison
Wisconsin. I'm Todd Albaugh, normally this slot in the Todd Albaugh show. We would
a promo was coming up next hour, including the Maggie Don show, but we are fortunate to have
Maggie Don, the host of that show with us live from Waukeshaw, Wisconsin, our WAUK studios,
the Sean, Maggie joins us as well as Luke Madderis, our executive producer here at civic media,
is on the ground at MATC, Madison College here, Madison, where the president just wrapped up remarks
focused a lot on student loan forgiveness for working class people all across America,
including course here in Wisconsin. If we have time, we'll break some of those five things down.
Maggie, I assume you're probably going to go into a little bit of that on your show,
coming up after the top of the hour as well. But one thing I want to get to before we wrap up
our special coverage here, and Luke, I like your opinion on this first, then we'll go to Maggie.
One of the things President Biden really emphasized was this wasn't just about student
loan forgiveness. And he made it emphasized to it is say, I want to invest in quote,
all Americans. And he talked about investing in high school and tech ed programs for those
that might not want to go on or just doesn't fit for them to go on to a college program,
saying how important it was that he got it growing up in Pennsylvania,
a working class family that were in need of people in the trades and saying that he's
putting $200 million into grants for registered apprentice programs, apprenticeship programs for
people in the trades. Luke, I thought that was really important. And I think touches a lot of
people beyond maybe just the base that he was here to talk to. Yeah, I believe that's a big part
of what he was he was looking to highlight in his career to medical college. This isn't just
for folks that necessarily are going to traditional liberal arts colleges for your universities.
This is the program for Americans as a whole and he's investing for folks that want to go into
union jobs, the trades, jobs that he alluded to that he works with your hands,
jobs like that, these programs would be targeted for folks like that as well.
Maggie Don, you're based out in Milwaukee, a big union town. I'm not sure if you try to get a
plumber like Trishon recently, but I mean, it's hard. I mean, we need more people going into these
programs. I thought the president announced this $200 million in grants for registered
apprentice programs much needed in the economy. Again, really balanced approach here. The student
loan forgiveness elements are basically income driven. And then he added on the registered apprentice
program grants. He made sure to hit that. He talked about community colleges like Madison College.
He's checking all the boxes here. If you tick off those three things, right? Like, hey,
student loan forgiveness, largely based on current income, you tick off community college and you
talk about apprentice programs. That's covering a wide swath of the workforce. And then you
couple that with what the president has done in terms of his support for unions, right? Who's left
out at that point? Who is he not speaking to when you talk about the people that are the engine
of the US economy? Again, I thought the speech and his special care to address those apprenticeship
programs and community colleges really, really well thought out, really well done. Maggie, again,
after going around the state last week and hearing from people, I think what they're really,
well, I heard from Wisconsin. I said they wanted cheerleader and one of the things that was notable
that was missing from President Biden's speech of Madison today. There were no egregious
negative swipes. There was no talking down to people. It was hopeful. It was inclusive. And I
think it's a message that resonates with all Wisconsin nights. Yeah, you know, we can lament
the fact that psychologically, scare tactics and fear are great human motivators. But when we
talk about good public policy and really leadership that serves working people in this country,
our friends, our neighbors, our family members, that's what Joe Biden lays out nearly every time
you hear the man speak, right? And it is this inclusive approach. He's not leaving Americans out.
This isn't us and them. This is all of us together. And it's a vision for the future. It's not a
doomsday scenario. It's a vision for the future. I do think also in fairness, the president,
when appropriate, does have some particularly pointed criticisms were needed. But when it comes
to these policy ideas, I think this was a very emblematic speech of his approach. There's
something here for everybody. And this is about an engine for an economy that begins with regular
working folks like me and you Todd and our good friend Luke on the ground in Madison.
Luke, Mother speaking of, we will talk more about this with you tomorrow on our Tuesday tanges
with Luke segment at 12 30. But final thoughts for you after doing Yolman's work for us at
Civic Media on the ground today at Madison College for the president's visit.
Yeah, I think just to summarize what you and Maggie were just discussing, Joe Biden
is the president that's looking to deliver for all Wisconsinized and all Americans. And I think
is remarks in the tactics studies using at a disposal when it comes to executive action on issues
like student loan are very indicative of the way that he would govern in a second term.
Luke, you've been great for us today. Thanks for all your hard work out there. My friend,
I appreciate it. We'll all look forward to talking to you tomorrow at 12 30 on the show.
Maggie Don, what's coming up next on your show and final thoughts for you on this presidential visit.
I love seeing and listening to Joe do Joe, right? This is again such a great exemplar of Joe Biden's
approach to public policy. So we're going to talk a little bit more about the details of what he
rolled out today and what we can expect more from Joe Biden. We're going to look at the jobs
numbers. Some really great jobs numbers coming out last week. We're basically back to pre-pandemic
employment levels. So we're going to share some good news on the Maggie Don show. But of course,
I got to call out a couple of the ridiculous things that happened to pop off of the weekend.
I think Roseanne Barr, if there was any doubt that she had completely lost her mind,
she sealed the deal this weekend. We'll take a listen to some fun stuff to have a chuckle and
some good news coming up on the Maggie Don show. All right, Maggie, we appreciate your help,
help us anchor this special report. Thank you so very much. I appreciate my friend and have a
great show coming up at 2 to 4 on Civic Media, the Maggie Don show. Thank you so much, Maggie.
Many thanks to our engineering team as well, including Sage Wilde and Aaron Zommers and all the
people that made that run so smoothly. We appreciate you so very much. This will conclude our special
broadcast coverage of President Biden's visit to Madison, Wisconsin. As Maggie said,
we're just on the on the start of this, folks. The cusp expect a lot more visits from both Joe Biden
and Donald Trump as we move forward. As our friend Trigley Olson from the Lincoln Project has said,
many a time, we'll continue to say anybody who knows anything about presidential politics,
Wisconsin most likely is ground zero. Wisconsin is likely to decide the next president of the United
States. It's just the way the numbers line up, the electoral college as goes, Wisconsin will be
as goes the White House most likely in 2024. So you the voters, you the listers, you the voters,
you are the ones who will get to decide who sits in the White House. We appreciate you listening
to President Biden, our special coverage thereof. We'll see you tomorrow on the top of the show.
Keep banging your drum. Thank you for listening. Thanks to Luke and to Maggie and to Mr. Zommers.
