Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith joins the On the Move panel to discuss President Trump's push for school's to reopen in the fall. She also spoke with Senator Mark Warner who shared his thoughts on the matter.
Video Transcript
- Well, let's go back to a story that we have been following closely. And that is back to school and how and whether it is going to happen. The latest, as we heard from the CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield-- he had an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America", in which he said the CDC will not revise its guidelines for reopening schools.
Remember, the president had made some calls for it to do so. Jessica Smith has been following this for us, and she joins us now from Washington DC. And I know you spoke to a senator as well about this quest to reopen schools.
JESSICA SMITH: Yeah. The president is facing pushback from some Democratic lawmakers about his efforts to reopen school. As you mentioned, we've kind of seen this back and forth. The president criticized the CDC guidelines, saying that there were tough, expensive, impractical. Then Vice President Pence said the CDC was going to revise those guidelines. But now, the CDC director says, no. We're not revising them. We're going to be getting more information.
So it will be interesting to see what those guidelines actually look like when the CDC releases this new information sometime in the coming days. But I did speak to Senator Mark Warner about all of this situation-- this debate. And he says that the president is refusing to acknowledge the reality of the pandemic. And he says, there should not be an attempt to mandate schools go back to in-person classes without considering the conditions in the local communities. Let's watch.
MARK WARNER: That ought to be decided by individual school divisions on terms of what is in the best interest of those children and the health and safety of the kids and the teachers and other folks who work at the school. It should not be driven by Donald Trump's political agenda. And I think, frankly, as a parent outrage that he thinks that he could mandate returning kids to school regardless of the health consequences.
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JESSICA SMITH: --schools do not go back to in-person classes. But this morning in an interview, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said that the administration wouldn't be pulling funding from education, but would instead allow families to use that money and figure out how their kids can get an education elsewhere if their schools refuse to reopen. It is not clear at all how that would work. So we'll be looking for more details about that aspect of the administration's plan.
- That's the first I've heard of that, and that is just bonkers, Jess. I'm not sure where we would go as a parent. Thanks so much, Jessica Smith, joining us from DC.