CNN’s Scott Jennings Torches Randi Weingarten for Role in School Closures: ‘I Hear No Remorse’

CNN’s Scott Jennings confronted American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten on Thursday’s edition of CNN Tonight, accusing the labor leader of not only working to keep schools closed during the coronavirus pandemic but lying about it.

After host Alisyn Camerota turned to Jennings, he launched into an impassioned monologue. “Yeah, we don’t know each other,” he began:

But speaking on behalf of millions of American parents — I have four at home, I had to teach them at home, my wife had to teach them at home — I am stunned at what you have said this week about your claiming to have wanted to reopen schools. I think you’ll find that most parents believe you were the tip of the spear of school closures. There are numerous statements you made over the summer of ’20 scaring people to death about the possibility of opening schools.

And I hear no remorse whatsoever about the generational damage that’s been done to these ki, I have two kids with learning differences. Do you know how hard it is for them to learn at home, and not in a classroom that was designed for them? And for you to sit in front of Congress and the American people and say ‘What? I wanted to open them the whole time.’ I am shocked, I am stunned, and there are millions of parents who feel the exact same way.

Weingarten, responding by touting her record:

So, I don’t know you, sir and you don’t know me. But I have worked for the last 20 or 30 years helping kids every single day. I’ve been a schoolteacher, I’ve been a union leader. I knew and understood the importance of reopening the schools and the importance of making sure that people were safe. And poll after poll that we did of parents, and I spent a lot of time with parents, said that they basically understood and supported that we needed to do both. I’m really sorry about your kids-

“You think parents wanted to keep the kids? You think parents support you in keeping kids? Why did we fail? How did Europe and the rest of the civilized world get this right and we failed?” interjected Jennings.

“The schools in Europe that opened sooner than we did, and most them did, had the mitigating strategies that we were just talking about,” asserted Weingarten.

Weingarten repeatedly lambasted Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) for reopening schools in the fall of 2020.

“Georgia has had a terrible school opening & it’s highest death toll today… will it’s Governor ever learn that #Covid is serious,” tweeted Weingarten in August 2020.  “Huge!! Judge strikes down Florida’s school reopening order,” she celebrated later that same month.

Weingarten has not worked full-time as a teacher since 1997.

Watch above via CNN.

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