Donald Trump Blasted After Late Night Tweet Demanding Schools Reopen

President Donald Trump took to Twitter late Monday evening to demand that in-person learning be reinstituted, and social media users were quick to respond.

“OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!!” Trump wrote in a Twitter post after 11 p.m. in Washington, D.C.

Trump has been vocal about his desire to see schools back to normal in the fall, going so far as to threaten to halt federal funding for any institution that refuses to do so. His idea has been met with criticism in the past, with some expressing concern that because the novel coronavirus pandemic isn’t under control in the United States, sending children back could contribute to the virus spreading further.

Some critics on social media pointed out that Trump’s own son, Barron, will be attending classes online in the fall because the private St. Andrew’s Episcopal had made the decision to remain shuttered. In the announcement, Montgomery County Health Officer Travis Gayles said that COVID-19 made it unsafe to begin in-person learning at this point.

“Dear Stupid, You can’t even get your own son’s school” to do so, tweeted best-selling author Don Winslow. “They have refused. The [one] where your son Barron is being educated refuses to open because it’s not safe. Now sit there, eat your Big Mac, and shut up.”

Other countries have been moving to make available in-person classes, but as some pointed out, many of those places have lower infection and death rates than the U.S. does.

The U.S. shouldn’t demand educational institutions open “when the pandemic is not under control. The other rich countries are opening [theirs] safely because they controlled the virus outside… first,” wrote sociologist Philip N. Cohen.

Actress Alyssa Milano was even more succinct in her criticism. She linked to a story in Georgia that showed that 260 employees working for the Gwinnett Country district tested positive for COVID-19 and are currently in quarantine as they ramp up efforts to start normal educational processes.

“You are trying to get people killed,” she tweeted.

It’s the second such message that Trump has posted on Monday, saying in the early morning that kids should be allowed to return to educational institutions because the cases in the U.S. only appeared to be higher because of increased testing.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, that message, too, was met with criticism, with multiple people suggesting that Trump send Barron back first before he should ask other Americans to do so.