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Biden's Student Loan Relief Plan Sparking Debate, Mixed Reactions; 13 U.S. Service Members Killed in Terrorist Attack a Year Ago Today; CNN's Wolf Blitzer Previews New Holocaust Special. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 26, 2022 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[10:30:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: $24 billion, that is the price tag the White House is estimating the president's student loan forgiveness plan will cost per year. CNN is learning more about the process leading up to Biden's decision to give that debt relief to millions of Americans.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: One Democrat called the wrangling over the plan tortured, but not everyone is embracing it. CNN's Ryan Young reports reaction ranges from relief to frustration, also disappointment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: My campaign for president, I made a commitment --

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): President Biden's announcement canceling student loan debt for millions of Americans created instant strong reactions. Is it too much or not enough?

What's your initial reaction when you heard that finally being announced?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was like, great, that means I don't have to pay on what I owe that's left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a lot of money given out to a small segment of the population and they didn't do anything to really deserve it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have mixed emotions about it.

YOUNG: For small business owner Bryan Lonsberry, the forgiveness plan isn't the right move. His family tightened their budget to make sure they kept paying their loans during the pandemic.

BRYAN LONSBERRY, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER: We have done the sacrifices, the no vacations, no out to eats, and now I'm on the other side. The reason is upsets me so much is are we setting a good example?

YOUNG: Brian believes that the students should think about the financial impact before taking out giant loans that will affect their futures.

LONSBERRY: It's a little upsetting that we kept paying and struggled and through everything and other people just gave up and quit, and I wasn't raised to quit.

YOUNG: The president's plan could affect up to 43 million Americans and forgives federal loan debt of up to $10,000 for people making less than $125,000 a year. 27 million Americans with Pell Grants will be forgiven up to $20,000, according to the White House, over 45 percent of borrowers or roughly 20 million people will have their debt fully canceled.

[10:35:09]

It's a plan President Biden first spoke about on the campaign trail.

BIDEN: I'm going to make sure that everybody in this generation gets $10,000 knocked off of their student debt.

YOUNG: It was Matteo Gomez who asked candidate Biden about his plans to help Americans his age achieve their dreams.

MATEO GOMEZ, BARRY UNIVERSITY GRADUATE: I was asking him, overall, does the American dream still exist?

YOUNG: He points to the president delivering on a campaign promise despite wondering if more can be done.

GOMEZ: This is a first step for something. When looking at the campaign promise, he did say that so I could say, check.

YOUNG: As the president's plan continues to receive mixed reaction, one thing is clear, the high cost of college is something many believe needs immediate attention.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Education is too expensive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to go back to the core of why is school so expensive.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like that there is a bigger problem like the cost of education.

YOUNG: As former students digest the president's move to cancel billions in loans, for some, it's a welcome relief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have the debt, I'm paying back the debt, so I will take it and keep it moving.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Ryan Young, thanks so much for that report. Still ahead, it's been one year to the day after 13 U.S. service members were killed in a horrible terror attack just at the entrance to Kabul airport. We were live on the air as it happened here.

Our next guest says the country has turned since then into a terrorist paradise. What he says the U.S. must do, that's coming up.

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[10:40:00]

SCIUTTO: Just this hour, President Biden marked one year since a terror attack killed 13 U.S. service members during the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. Biden remembered the Americans as, quote, heroes working to save lives as part of the largest airlift evacuation operation in our history. There are their faces there.

You may remember this photo of Marine Nicole Gee, she shared it on social media just days before the blast that took her life and those of so many others. She was cradling an Afghan child there. More than 170 Afghan civilians, some of the thousands who frantically hoped to escape Afghanistan from the airport also died in that attack.

Let's speak now to Jason Howk. He's a retired U.S. Army major, currently director of the Global Friends of Afghanistan, also a veteran of the Afghan war. Major, thanks for taking the time this morning.

MAJ. JASON HOWK (RET.), DIRECTOR, GLOBAL FRIENDS OF AFGHANISTAN: Good to see you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you it's a year since this attack, 13 U.S. service members lost, of course, just the latest at the time in a series of attack that killed so many people, people including folks you knew and fought with, and we've heard from veterans suffering from real trauma, particularly in the wake of the withdrawal, understandable questions about what was the sacrifice for. And I wonder if you've seen that, perhaps experienced that yourself.

HOWK: I've definitely seen that and have been working through -- this has been a long year, especially for all the people volunteering to try to evacuate and resettle the Afghan refugees and SIVs. As one spouse put it to me one day, I'm getting to see my husband like on deployment, it's been a year of him working 19-hour days, using every penny he has to try to save Afghans on the other side of the world and help them resettle. So, it has been a crushing year for most Afghan veterans, and especially those involved in the evacuation and resettlement.

SCIUTTO: Yes. You guys are doing yeoman's work, so many groups doing their best to get folks out.

You have written that the overthrow of Afghans elected government plunged the country, using your words here, into despair, violence and fear. I know that you and others believe strongly that the U.S. left this country, these people behind. What would you like to see the U.S. do to help Afghans through that humanitarian crisis right now?

HOWK: This has been, in the words of Afghans, and I asked a lot of them as I speak to them every day, this is just seen as a betrayal by them, that we've abandoned them, especially the woman. I will be on Zoom with the women of Kabul who have been doing the protesting right after this. They are just crushed. They feel their morale is sagging. We need to have a huge humanitarian push.

But I think it's also a time that we recognize that the Taliban/Haqqani regime are one, and they are partners with Al Qaeda and they are all terrorists. We can break away from this Doha agreement we've signed, they have failed it numerous times. And it's time to treat them like terrorists.

SCIUTTO: Yes. You've called it, as we mentioned earlier, a terrorist paradise now. You are recommending that the U.S. need to rebuild its intelligence lost after the withdrawal of U.S. forces, but also should not take military action off the table. We did see the successful strike on the Al Qaeda leader, Zawahiri, just a couple weeks ago. Does that give you confidence it's possible to fight the terrorists from outside the country?

HOWK: It is possible. It is going to be very slow. We have forces that are designed to help counterterrorism forces in other parts of the world in country. We have a strong intelligence capability that is good at this. And right now, you've got the Haqqani and Taliban leaders inside Afghanistan. They don't have an air force. They have no skills to keep those drones from coming.

[10:45:01]

The Haqqani leaders went on a walk about when they hit Zawahiri. They ran for their lives. They thought they were next.

So, without the ability to escape into Pakistan easily and to hide there under the Pakistani safety, this is the perfect time to eradicate a lot of these terrorists, give Afghans the chance to rebuild their own country on their own terms.

SCIUTTO: Are you saying it's necessary to put U.S. boots back on the ground inside the country to accomplish that task?

HOWK: It could be paramilitary, but we do have some organizations that are very skilled at this type of work and are doing it in places like Syria and all over Africa. There's no reason we shouldn't remove the terrorists that are holding 40 million Afghans hostage.

As one of my Afghan buddies told me, he is a retired general that ran their special ops, the Al Qaeda bases have grown about tenfold since we left and they are using our old bases as Al Qaeda camps. I've known him since he was a captain. I mean, he knows what's happening in that country. We are watching things grow to a danger that was worse than before September 11th and we're just watching it. We have got to take some action. They are emboldened and they are going to keep doing what they want to do. SCIUTTO: Well, Major Jason Chris Howk, you've done so much work since you left the country to stay engaged and do your best to improve people's lives there. We thank you for that and we thank you for joining us this morning.

HOWK: Thanks, Jim, and I hope we do take some action. There are a lot of Afghans that deserve a chance to do this right.

SCIUTTO: I hear you. I've been in touch with some of them as well. We wish you the best of luck.

HOWK: Thanks.

HARLOW: All right. Ahead, a new special report from our very own Wolf Blitzer, who will join us live to talk about why this story on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is also very personal for him.

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[10:50:00]

SCIUTTO: This is a sad and painful reality today, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial on the rise in this country as we lose Holocaust survivors who are able to give firsthand accounts of the very rear horror they experienced. Yet this crucial we remember that history, do our best ourselves to ensure it never happens again.

HARLOW: That's right. So, tonight, our very own friend and colleague, Wolf Blitzer, the son of Holocaust survivors, the grandson of four victims of the Holocaust, takes us inside of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for a CNN special report. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: These are shoes, old shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is one of our most iconic exhibits. If you visit these killing centers today, you see thousands upon thousands of shoes like this, the shoes that the victims. The Germans took their shoes because they were going to reuse them and recycle them, if you will, but, of course, the victims would be killed, but this is what is left of those lives.

BLITZER: These shoes, what, are 80, 90 years old and they're here, the only surviving element for all those people who were exterminated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the trace of a people before they were gassed.

BLITZER: I think of those shoes, you know, my four grandparents, we didn't have anything. Nothing was found, basically. It's just the horrendous, horrendous situation. It's so important, so timely now to remind people who don't know anything about it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Each shoe with a very personal story.

Situation Room Anchor Wolf Blitzer joins us now. As Poppy said, you lost four grandparents, you lost many other relatives to the Holocaust. This is personal, it's real for you and your family. I wonder given the news you cover so often, how urgent is this reminder today?

BLITZER: It's really urgent because, as we know, Holocaust denial is on the rise right now, as is anti-Semitism, not only around the world, but here in the United States as well. So, it's important that we learn what happened, it's important that we actually go to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, if we're here in Washington, and see because the exhibits are so powerful and we're going to show that later tonight.

SCIUTTO: Unforgettable.

HARLOW: You know, Wolf --

BLITZER: Yes, go ahead, Poppy.

HARLOW: I'm sorry to jump in. I just was wondering for you, we told our viewers your personal correction to this, obviously, with your family, so close and victims, but I wonder what it was actually like for you to report it out and what it felt like you to do this special report?

BLITZER: It was so, so personal and so powerful for me. And I had a chance and, you know, we spoke with survivors and, sadly, Poppy, as you know, there are fewer and fewer survivors who are still around to go out and speak to students, speak to others and tell their stories.

Many of them, like my dad, for example, they recorded their oral histories either at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum or elsewhere. And that's my dad, David Blitzer, may he rest in peace, as we say, may his memory be a blessing. He told his story and I listened to that story that he told.

Growing up in Buffalo, New York, I knew, of course, that my parents were holocaust survivors, I knew that all four of my grandparents had died.

[10:55:02]

I was named after my paternal and maternal grandfathers, and it was just an emotional experience for me living through all of that. And in the course of preparing this documentary tonight, we had a chance to interview some survivors. Let me play a clip, Poppy. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN FENVES, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: As a survivor, I have an obligation to speak on behalf of those who didn't survive. So, I see myself as a messenger, in which I hope some people recognize themselves and wonder what they would have done in the same situation. People have largely forgotten the Holocaust. Yes, I worry that that's going to further deteriorate and pass the threshold of people's memory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZAER: And, Poppy, in speaking with Holocaust survivors, I know you have, I know Jim has, it gets so, so -- it's hard to believe what these people actually went through, yet they were able to survive, like my mom and dad, they were able to survive. They were young, they were strong, and then after the war they were blessed and they came to the United States. They got permission to come in and they settled in Buffalo, New York, which is where I, of course, grew up. And this country gave them a chance, like so many other Holocaust survivors.

And I'm so grateful to the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate back in 1948 to pass what was called the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which granted 400,000 visas to displaced persons, many of them Holocaust survivors, and they were given a chance to come to America and build a new life. They were told where they would be going.

My parents were told they're going to Buffalo. My dad didn't know where buffalo was but they said it's New York. They said, oh, New York, probably a lot of Jewish people there. They didn't know it was 400 miles from New York. But Buffalo was a great community, welcomed my parents like they welcomed so many other immigrants, and they were given a new opportunity. So, it was just a wonderful, wonderful experience.

HARLOW: And we got you. What a gift we got out of all of it. And thank you for sharing that gift, Wolf, with all of us. We will be watching. For everyone watching, don't miss it tonight, CNN's special report Never Again airs tonight on CNN.

Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: Yes, we say must watch, that's a must watch. I'm Jim Sciutto.

At This Hour with Kate Bolduan starts right now.

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