Trump Pushes Back on Fauci: "We Have to Get the Schools Opened"
The president said he disagrees with Fauci that schools shouldn't open in the fall.
By Colby Hall
President Donald Trump pushed back on Dr. Anthony Fauci's recent comments about schools not being ready to reopen in the fall in an interview Thursday morning. The president told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo that he wanted schools to open up for the next school year.
The president's comments come the day after Fauci was asked by Senator Lamar Alexander during a Senate hearing what teachers and students can expect in the fall. He said, "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."
President Trump told Bartiromo on Thursday that he "disagreed" with Fauci's comments. "I think that we have to open our schools. Young people are very little affected by this," he said. "We have to get the schools opened and we have to get our country open. We have to open our country."
Watch below via Fox Business.
Fauci received a lot of attention after Tuesday's Senate hearing when Sen. Alexander asked the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID): "What would you say to … the principal of a public school about how to persuade parents and students to return to school in August?"
"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 said. He then qualified that what is at issue is "how the student will feel safe in going back to school."
"If this were a situation where we had a vaccine, that would really be the end of that issue in a positive way," he explained. "But … even at the top-speed we're going, we don't see a vaccine playing in the ability of individuals to get back to school this term. What they really want is to know if they are safe. And that's the question that has to do … with testing."
President Trump appears to be of a different opinion, however, on when schools should be open. And for more on what schools could look like post-lockdown, check out 7 Things You'll Never See in Schools Again After Coronavirus.
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