Fox News host Tucker Carlson ripped into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her July comments insisting it was not safe for children to return to school in the fall.
“If they were your kids, you could make the key decisions about their lives, but they’re not,” Carlson said during Monday’s episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight. “Those kids, your former kids, belong to Tony Fauci now. Tony Fauci, America’s parent. He’ll make the decisions about your kids, thank you very much, in conjunction with the nation’s uber mom. Who, by the way, is also 80 years old, Mrs. Nancy D. Pelosi.”
Carlson then played a clip of Pelosi in July being asked if she was confident children could safely return to school in the fall.
“No, I think what we heard from the secretary was malfeasance and dereliction of duty. This is appalling,” Pelosi said of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s plan to reopen schools in the fall. “The president and his administration are messing with the health of our children. Going back to school presents the biggest risk for the spread of the coronavirus.”
Responding to the clip, Carlson called Pelosi’s comments “criminal.”
“If that’s not criminal, what she just said, we may need to redefine what it means to commit a crime,” Carlson said. “Sixty million school-aged children affected by a decision that was wrong and many of them hurt for life, but we just blow right past it and allow political leaders like that to blow right past it with phrases like ‘the health of our children.’ What happens when you lock children in their rooms in front of screens and prevent them from experiencing human contact? Has Nancy Pelosi ever been asked that question? Has she ever wondered about the answer?”
Carlson also wondered whether children could be at greater risk of suicide because of lockdowns supported by Pelosi.
“According to the Centers for Disease Control, a total of 522 children between the ages of 5 and 14 died of suicide in 2017,” Carlson said. “In that same age group, only 42 children have died from the coronavirus so far this year. What are those suicide numbers going to look like if we continue to take Nancy Pelosi’s advice?”
“If that’s not criminal – what she just said – we may need to redefine what it means to commit a crime.
60M school age children affected by a decision that was wrong.”@TuckerCarlson mocks @SpeakerPelosi for calling opening schools the “biggest risk of the spread” of COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/JOrVdVZAqB
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 1, 2020
The segment comes as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Sunday that he believes schools should remain open.
“Close the bars and keep the schools open,” Fauci said during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, adding that there is “obviously” not a “one size fits all” approach to keeping schools open.
“The default position should be to try as best as possible, within reason, to keep the children in school,” Fauci added. “If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected. So let’s try to get the kids back.”
Schools across the country have started closing again in response to rising rates of COVID-19 infection in many regions. As of Monday, 40% of the country’s students were back to attending virtual classes.
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guide to reopening schools notes that COVID-19 “poses low risks to school-aged children.”
“In general, children with COVID-19 are less likely to have severe symptoms than adults or experience an asymptomatic infection – meaning they do not have any signs or symptoms of disease,” the CDC says.
“To be sure, the best available evidence from countries that have reopened schools indicates that COVID-19 poses low risks to school-aged children — at least in areas with low community transmission,” the CDC continues, noting that the “many benefits of in-person schooling should be weighed against the risks posed by COVID-19 spread.”
“Of key significance, in-person learning is in the best interest of students, when compared to virtual learning,” the CDC says.
