Fox News anchor Chris Wallace scolded Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and President Trump on Sunday for threatening to withhold federal funding from schools that do not reopen in the fall amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
During an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Wallace pressed DeVos on the president’s and her “authority” to “unilaterally cut off” funding for schools that was allocated by Congress. He also challenged the secretary, asking whether reducing funds is “exactly the wrong answer” instead of funneling money to “make schools safer” with expenses like health checks.
“American investment is a promise to students and their families,” DeVos replied. “If schools aren’t going to reopen and fulfill that promise, they shouldn’t get the funds. Then, give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise.”
Wallace then chastised DeVos’s comments to withhold funding saying, “Well, you can’t do that.”
“I know you support vouchers, and that’s a reasonable argument, but you can’t do that unilaterally,” he added. “You have to do that through Congress.”
The Education secretary answered by saying the administration is “looking at all the options.”
“Because it’s a promise of the American people, to students and their families, and we want to make sure that promise is followed through on,” she said.
DeVos last week said that she was “very seriously” considering withholding funding from schools that do not reopen in the fall, saying that another semester of remote learning would put American students behind.
“We are looking at this very seriously. This is a very serious issue across the country,” DeVos told Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Donald Trump has also tweeted about cutting funding to schools that do not reopen and condemned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for being too tough to allow schools to reopen.
The number of new COVID-19 cases identified each day in the U.S. has been rising in recent weeks, reaching a high of 68,241 new cases on Friday. In total, the nation has confirmed more than 3.2 million COVID-19 cases, leading to at least 134,815 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Watch the exchange below:
