During an interview released on Monday’s “Fox News Rundown” podcast, Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) stated that failing to open schools quicker is “probably the biggest mistake we made as a country.” And “more Democrats” should have pushed to open schools faster.
Malinowski stated, [relevant remarks begin around 9:55] “As far as the lockdown policies, look, I was actually quite vocal a year or more ago, urging schools to open faster than they ultimately did. So, it’s not a regret looking back. It’s something that I was speaking about from the very beginning. I think that’s probably the biggest mistake we made as a country. We did provide a lot of assistance to our public schools to get them safe to open again. I’m glad we did that. But I would acknowledge that more Democrats should have been saying what I was saying, and that is, get those schools open faster.”
In February of 2021, Malinowski said Congress needed to “send help now, so they can open safely.” As opposed to Republicans, who wanted “to force parents, teachers, and kids to open now, with no help.” The next month, Malinowski wrote an op-ed with fellow New Jersey Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer calling for schools to open.
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