East Room, White House

There’s A Word Missing From The President’s Vocabulary: “Safely”

“SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!”, the President yell-Tweets.

We watched what the White House called a “COVID-19 and School Safety Roundtable”, in which the President repeatedly expressed his strong intent to get schools in this country opened up with kids in classrooms this fall, and at no time in the 90-minute meeting did the President use that “safe” word.

Here’s what he did say:

“We wanna get our schools open. We wanna get them open quickly, beautifully in the fall….We don’t want people to make political statements…: they think it’s gonna be good for them politically so they keep the schools closed. No way!”

Then, he Tweeted this:

“The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!”

That last part about cutting off funding, while it makes for a good headline, doesn’t matter as much as the President would like you to think. Since most school funding is based on local taxes, and except for special programs, a lot of it doesn’t typically come from the federal government.