'He's buying votes': Gov Kristi Noem criticizes President Joe Biden's $1.2B student loan debt cancelation on 'Fox & Friends'

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: On February 21, the White House announced President Joe Biden's decision to eliminate $1.2 billion in student loan debt for more than 150,000 borrowers.

The decision, although appreciated by numerous individuals, sparked significant backlash from opponents, who alleged that President Joe Biden was attempting to garner public support ahead of the 2024 Presidential election.

South Dakota Gov Kristi Noem expressed these sentiments during the February 22 episode of 'Fox & Friends.'

Gov Kristi Noem's take on Joe Biden canceling student loan debt

"He's buying votes. That's exactly what he's doing," Noem told co-host Lawrence Jones. "The timing of this, to follow through on what he has threatened to do for so long, is incredibly hypocritical of him to say that he cares about this country and continue to accumulate debt and hand out money to get himself re-elected."

"I just hope everybody in America realizes that we're still spending more money than what we bring in in this country," she continued.

She added, "So when he does stuff like this, he's literally borrowing this money from China and then giving it to people so that they will support him and put him back in the White House, so he can continue his reign of control.

Kristy further stated, "So, it's really the worst of the worst and Americans are waking up to it with all these crises we have going on at the border, our national security, people's gas and groceries being unaffordable. People are struggling right now, and this president just is not even aware of what the reality is on the ground."

Joe Biden's 'SAVE' plan

The President's Savings on Valuable Education (SAVE) policy which was originally planned for July was brought into effect with an executive action months earlier.

According to Fox News, the policy cancels debt for enrolled borrowers who have been in repayment for at least 10 years and hold $12,000 or less in student loan debt. Those with larger debts are set to receive relief after an additional year of payments for every additional $1,000 they borrowed.

With his latest executive order, President Biden has unilaterally cleared nearly $138 billion in federal student loans for almost 3.9 million borrowers without ever going through Congress.

This is after the US Supreme Court blocked his initial debt cancellation plan in 2023, which would have cost more than $400 billion.