Khanna: I Can’t Vote for Debt Bill, It Makes People Pay Student Loans and Approves a Pipeline During ‘Climate Crisis’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) stated that he will vote against the bill to raise the debt limit and criticized the bill because people are going to have to start repaying their student loans and that “at a time where the climate crisis is there, we shouldn’t be just giving a green light to constructing the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

Khanna said, “I’m a no. … The president did the best he could under a hostage situation. And he and his team deserve a lot of credit. It could have been a lot worse. They have a deal that’s better, frankly, than the deal that was ten years ago. But the point is that they’ve increased defense spending — because of the Republican extremism — while cutting aid to the most vulnerable, while having student loan recipients not get continued relief, while having the Mountain [Valley] fossil fuel pipeline made permanent. That’s just not something that most of us can get behind.”

Later, host Peter Alexander asked, “Congressman Khanna, let me ask you what Sen. Warren (D-MA)…said, she said that every rock that you overturn in this deal, there’s something else sliming under it. I imagine that’s your view. What is the biggest slime? And what do you think the Senate in particular could try to do through the amendment process to get rid of?”