Mace: Biden's 'Bold & Ambitious' Plan to Reopen Schools One Day a Week Is Unacceptable
Washington - Congresswoman Nancy Mace (SC-01) joined the Guy Benson Show on Thursday to callout the Biden administration for claiming its plan to reopen 50 percent of schools one day a week is "bold and ambitious." Listen to her interview here, and read an excerpt of the transcript below:
Congresswoman Nancy Mace · Rep. Nancy Mace Talks Trauma & Reopening Schools on the Guy Benson Show
GUY BENSON: We can reveal that you've got an op-ed dropping tomorrow on FoxNews.com about school reopenings. This is a topic we have been talking a lot about here. It must be even more pressing in your mind as a mother of two. We have seen the Biden administration come out with their plan, which they say they want to get 50 percent of schools open at least one day a week by the beginning of May, and many people have noted that 65 percent of schools already meet that threshold today. And you have these top health officials, CDC Director Dr. Fauci saying it is safe now for kids to go back to school, even without teachers being vaccinated yet, but apparently the Biden administration wants nothing to do with that. They’ve got this totally cockamamie goal that’s already been met, similar to their supposed goal on vaccinations, which they inherited a trajectory that’s going to get them there. And yesterday, the White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said that "no this truly is a bold and ambitious plan" that they laid out open to reopening schools. I’m going to guess, maybe go out on a limb, that you don’t agree that it’s terribly bold or ambitious.
REP. NANCY MACE: I wholeheartedly disagree, reopening 50 percent of schools one day a week is not bold or ambitious. And doing it by May when schools are just about done for the year is outrageous. I’m a single mom, I’ve got two middle-schoolers, and I have to tell you I’ve seen the challenges. I have had one child that took two online learning and one that is really, really struggling. And they have two working parents that work full time, and we can’t sit their with our children all day five days a week doing school work. There are many parents, this is not a Republican or Democratic issue, this is an American issue. there are people who need their kids back in schools. The science tells us, the CDC tells us the science overwhelmingly says schools who have certain precautions and measures in place pose a very minimal risk to students and educators regarding the spread of COVID. In my own district, we have a county where they are in school five days a week, and one half of one percent of students may have COVID at any given time. So it is safe. We can take precautions and be safe. And our kids need to be back in school, our folks need to be back at work, and we need to get vaccinations in arms. That’s what our country needs to do right now.
BENSON: Is there anything, cause you talked about the importance of having people in Congress who are there to govern and not be influencers, is there anything cause right now you guys are in the minority in the house, barely, 5 votes shy of the majority, but still there’s only so much you can do. What are the steps that you think Congress can take to try to pressure the Biden administration to stand up to the teachers’ unions, frankly, and actually put the the needs and the science of the students first, considering the fact that you may not have the votes because ultimately the gavel is wielded by Speaker Pelosi.
MACE: Right, no absolutely, I mean you saw the Virginia teacher’s unions roll on the president and roll on the country, saying their teachers wanted vaccinations and they’ve said nope we’re not going back to school.
BENSON: And they still won’t come back! It’s crazy.
MACE: And they still won’t come back. It’s crazy when there are people out there when our elderly, our vulnerable populations needed a vaccine, and they took advantage of the situation. We need strong leadership that will push back on the unions and put our children first. And it should be parents with their students making these decisions on when they go back to school, whether its one day, four days, five days, whatever they want to do. That should be the opportunity here. We have millions of kids that are struggling to get a quality education at home, it’s a huge challenge.
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