Scalise: Students Deserve In-Person Learning Opportunities

WASHINGTON, D.C.—House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox News Channel's America's Newsroom to discuss President Trump's efforts to keep Americans safe amidst the wave of violence in certain cities across the country where some mayors have shown an unwillingness to protect their own communities.

Whip Scalise also laid out the potential damage to students and children across our nation who are unable to attend school in-person. As the American Academy of Pediatrics recently stressed the importance of in-person learning, Whip Scalise emphasized the need focus on the science and reopen schools this fall to protect the health and well-being of students and children.

On President Trump's efforts to keep Americans safe amidst the wave of violence in certain cities across the country:

"The President's got a responsibility to keep Americans safe and I'm glad that he's carrying out his duties as the President of the United States to do that, even if some of these local mayors are not going to be willing to keep their people safe. You've seen the defund the police movement, and whether it's Joe Biden saying he's going to allocate money away from police officers, that is defunding police and that's not where most Americans are. Americans deserve to be safe in their homes and to be safe when they go about their business, and right now some of these mayors aren't providing that which is very unfortunate."

[...]

"I strongly support peaceful protests, but we've seen in some of these cities anarchists have taken over and gone out and looted and burned down buildings. That's not peacefully protesting, and that's where you've got these mayors that need to be standing up and protecting their communities. Some are doing it really well, by the way, but some aren't. And I think people want to be safe and secure in their homes. They deserve that, it's a right. They pay taxes to have police forces to keep them safe, and police officers do an incredible job, there are brave police officers every day who risk their lives. If there's a bad cop, go root them out, but by and large, the vast majority of police are risking their lives to keep us safe. We need to back them up and give them the support and the tools they need to do their job safely."

On the importance of safely reopening schools in the fall:

"This is a critical debate that we have to get through right now. Look, we put a man on the moon, to suggest that we can't get a way to safely reopen schools is ludicrous. You've got the American Academy of Pediatrics, very respected, that laid out good guidelines for how to safely do it. But they also talked about the damage it does to kids if they are not getting that in-school learning. There's a lot of science behind us, it's well documented. I was with Dr. Birx and Vice President Pence and others last week at LSU where we were talking about the protocols for safely reopening schools, which we are doing in Louisiana. Other states need to figure out how to do it because it's a disservice to these kids. And, by the way, if there's ever been a stronger argument for school choice, if a school system is willing to take your money but not figure out, and do the hard work of figuring out how to safely reopen and there's somebody else that's willing to educate your child in person safely, you ought to be able to have the dollar follow the child so that they can get the in-person learning. It's about the children, and we as adults have to do our work to make sure we're serving those kids. It would be a cop out to say you can't do it."

[…]

"There's already so much money out there that is not even spent. Over $100 billion in the Paycheck Protection Program that hasn't been spent. Who knows how much because we haven't been able to get the full accounting of how much states have. It's in the tens of billions that they still have that we've allocated. There's a lot of money out there. What we need is the resolve to get it done. Again, we put a man on the moon. You could've figured out 100 reasons not to do it, we said we're going to make it work and we did. We returned them safely. We can open up schools safely. The protocols are out there, other systems are doing it. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. But to say you can't do it, they're ok with taking the money but then they don't want to educate the children. That would fail those children who deserve that opportunity to be taught in school. Find a way to get it done, this is America."