Sen. Elizabeth Warren ended her questioning of Francis Brooke, President Trump’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, with a blunt verdict after he repeatedly failed to answer basic questions about the very portfolio he would oversee.
Warren opened her question session in the July 16 confirmation hearing by laying out the stakes. Trump had moved management of defaulted student loans from the Education Department to Treasury, which Warren referred to as “not a decision that is made to try to help people dealing with student loans” but rather “a political stunt.”
The result, the three-term Massachusetts Democrat argued, was “the biggest student loan default crisis in recorded history.”
She then turned to Brooke with what she called a basic question. “How many federal student loan borrowers are currently in default under the Trump administration?”
Brooke deflected, citing Treasury’s role as a “fiscal agent.” Warren cut him off. “I asked a very easy question,” she said. “How many people are you now dealing with?”
“I don’t know the specific number,” Brooke admitted, “but it’s more than it should be.”
Warren pressed further. “How about a ballpark number?”
“I’d be happy for you to tell me the number,” Brooke replied.
“You don’t have a ballpark number,” Warren said flatly. “Do you have a general region of the country number? What planet it is on?”
Warren then answered her own question. “It’s 9 million people who are in default right now and whose financial lives will be in your hands, and you don’t even know who they are or where they are.”
Warren then walked Brooke through exactly what was at stake for those 9 million borrowers.
Under federal law, she explained, Treasury holds the power to garnish hundreds of dollars per month directly from Social Security benefits, a tool known as “offsets” that the government has used to cut over $1 billion from Americans’ Social Security benefits over the years.
The situation is especially dire for older borrowers, Warren noted, since seniors with student loans are about twice as likely to be in default than younger borrowers.
“So, since this is all in Treasury’s jurisdiction and all part of what you want to go head up,” Warren said, pivoting back to Brooke, she wanted to know how many seniors could face those cuts under his watch.
“I do not,” Brooke said.
“450,000,” she said.
She eventually asked whether Brooke could commit to protecting seniors from having their Social Security benefits cut to offset defaulted student loan debt, a power Treasury now holds. Brooke again refused to give a direct answer, offering only to “continue to work” with her office.
“I’m just looking for the half a million people who are seniors,” Warren said. “Just a commitment that they can count on getting that Social Security payment month after month after month, without Donald Trump taking a big bite out of it, and I can’t even get that out of this nominee.”
She closed without hesitation. “I’ll be a no on you.”
