President jabs Fauci on schools
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump urged governors across the nation Wednesday 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’s tiring of the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
“I think they should open the schools, absolutely. I think they should,” Trump said 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 likely will 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 wasn’t 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.
Trump 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 also has complained to aides and confidants about Fauci’s positive media attention and his willingness to contradict the president. But Trump also has acknowledged that the blowback to removing the doctor would be fierce.
In his testimony, Fauci issued a blunt warning that cities and states could “turn back the clock” and see more death and economic damage if they lift stay-at-home orders too quickly — a message that stands in sharp contrast to Trump’s push to reopen the nation as he tries to blunt the economic damage caused by the pandemic during an election year.
“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” Fauci warned as more than two dozen states have begun to lift their lockdowns.