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Trump: ‘I Totally Disagree’ With Fauci On Keeping Schools Closed

   DailyWire.com
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 07: Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens to U.S. President Donald Trump speak to reporters following a meeting of the coronavirus task force in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 7, 2020 in Washington, DC. The president today removed the independent chairman of a committee tasked with overseeing the roll out of the $2 trillion coronavirus bailout package.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

On Wednesday, President Trump publicly voiced his disagreements with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and his melancholic warnings about reopening schools in the fall.

Speaking with Maria Bartiromo of FOX Business, President Trump hailed Fauci as a “very good person,” while saying schools need to open “quickly” and safely.

“So [Dr.] Anthony [Fauci] is a good person, a very good person – I’ve disagreed with him,” Trump said. “We have to get the schools open, we have to get our country open, we have to open our country. Now, we want to do it safely, but we also want to do it as quickly as possible, we can’t keep going on like this … You’re having bedlam already in the streets, you can’t do this. We have to get it open. I totally disagree with him on schools.”

The president’s statement echoed one he made in a press briefing on Wednesday when he said that the country may not bounce back if schools continue to remain closed.

On Tuesday, Fauci testified before a U.S. Senate committee, stressing that COVID-19 could see a resurgence as states and cities reopen their economies. He also cautioned against reopening schools in the fall.

“If this were a situation where you had a vaccine, that would really be the end of the issue in a positive way,” Fauci said. “But as I mentioned in my opening remarks, 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.”

President Trump expressed bafflement over the answer. “I was surprised by his answer actually because it’s just to me it’s not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools,” he said.

Also on Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) challenged Fauci on some of his assertions and called for some humility in the predictions based on the current data.

“I think that … we’re going to have a national one-size-fits-all approach – nobody’s going to go to school, is kind of ridiculous,” Paul told Fauci. “We really ought to be doing it school district by school district, and the power needs to be dispersed because people make wrong predictions.”

Senator Paul noted that the mortality rates have varied by region and criticized the experts for crafting policies based on faulty scientific models that have been largely disproven, some as recently as this week.

“We ought to have a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what’s best for the economy,” said Paul. “And, as much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end-all. I don’t think you’re the one person that gets to make the decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other sides saying that there’s not going to be a surge, and we can safely open the economy and the facts will bear this out.”

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