Trump wants U.S. schools to reopen
PRESIDENT TAKES DIG AT NATION’S TOP INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT
President Donald Trump called on governors across the nation Wednesday to work to reopen schools that were closed because of the coronavirus, pointedly taking issue with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s caution against moving too quickly in sending students back to class.
The president accused Fauci of wanting “to play all sides of the equation,” a comment that suggested he is tiring of the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
“I think they should open the schools, absolutely. I think they should,” Trump told reporters at the White House, echoing comments he had made in a television interview. “Our country’s got to get back and it’s got to get back as soon as possible. And I don’t consider our country coming back if the schools are closed.”
Fauci had urged caution in testimony before a Senate committee Tuesday, although he made clear that he believes reopening decisions will likely differ from one region to the next.
“We don’t know everything about this virus and we really better be pretty careful, particularly when it comes to children,” Fauci told the committee. At one point, he told members that “the idea of having treatments available or a vaccine to facilitate the re-entry of students into the fall term would be something that would be a bit of a bridge too far.”
Fauci later clarified that he was not implying students should be barred from returning to class until a COVID-19 vaccine is developed. But his comments were nonetheless seized on by conservative commentators, as well as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who called the notion “kind of ridiculous.”
“To me, it’s not an acceptable answer,” Trump said of Fauci on Wednesday. He said the coronavirus has “had very little impact on young people,” although there is growing concern over cases of a mysterious inflammatory syndrome in young people that is thought to be related to the virus.
Speaking of Fauci, Trump told Maria Bartiromo in an interview for Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” that “I totally disagree with him on schools.”
Trump and Fauci have publicly disagreed before, including on the effectiveness of certain drugs that have been tested to treat the virus. Trump has also complained to aides and confidants about Fauci’s positive media attention and his willingness to contradict the president. But Trump has also acknowledged that the blowback to removing the doctor would be fierce.