House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had choice words about the Trump administration’s goal to reopen schools in the fall despite upticks in coronavirus cases across the country.
The California Democrat on Sunday called Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s stance on reopening schools “malfeasance” and “dereliction of duty,” adding that a swift reopening would put the health of students at risk.
“The president and his administration are messing with the health of our children,” Pelosi said on CNN’s State of the Union. “We all want our children to go back to school. Teachers do, parents do, and children do, but they must go back safely.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the Trump administration’s push to restart in-person learning in schools is “messing with the health of our children” and that “going back to school presents the biggest risk for the spread of the coronavirus.” #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/qsAECfIGGc
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) July 12, 2020
President Trump has been strong on his stance that schools should reopen in the fall. He criticized the guidelines put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as being impractical and expensive and threatened to cut off federal funding to school districts that don’t fully open.
While the Trump administration has emphasized that CDC guidelines are recommendations and not requirements, Pelosi said the public health measures should be mandated, but she feels the administration would never give a green light to that idea.
“You have to have a science-oriented administration to require it,” she said, adding, “They should be mandates, not requirements.”
“They should be mandates, not requirements,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says about the CDC coronavirus guidelines #CNNSOTU https://t.co/OcTS24N9LZ pic.twitter.com/zHXUjAptXD
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 12, 2020
Pelosi also criticized the Trump administration’s overall handling of the pandemic, alluding that the push to reopen schools will only add to the chaotic governance of the virus.
“They have no appreciation for the failure that has brought us to this point,” Pelosi said. “Going back to school presents the biggest risk for the spread of the coronavirus. They ignore science, and they ignore governance.”
The United States has recorded over 3 million cases of coronavirus and has suffered almost 140,000 deaths.
