CDC Director Says Agency Won't Revise School Reopening Guidelines - Despite Trump Pressure

On Wednesday, Trump criticized the CDC guidelines for being "very tough" and "impractical" and threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that don't physically reopen and Vice President Mike Pence said that the agency will revise its guidelines for reopening schools.

CDC Director Robert Redfield pushed back in a Good Morning America interview Thursday saying that "our guidelines are our guidelines," and that the CDC will provide additional reference documents for schools but that "it's not a revision of the guidelines."

Redfield emphasized that the CDC produces guidelines, not requirements, to help local jurisdictions and that the agency is working with the jurisdictions to "take the portfolio of guidance that we have given to make them practical for their schools to reopen."

The administration's push for schools to reopen has been widely viewed as a strategy for boosting the economy before the election and some politicians, like Chair of the House Education Committee Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Virginia) have argued that Trump's push to "prematurely reopen" schools ignores the health experts and is "dangerous."

Other politicians question the administration's ability to cut federal funding, as Evan Hollander, spokesperson for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement to NPR that Trump "has no authority to cut off funding for these students, and threatening to do so to prop up his flailing campaign is offensive."

About 90% of school funding comes from states and localities, and Trump has limited ability to curtail appropriations approved by Congress.

I'm a breaking news reporter at Forbes and the author of What Next?: Your Five-Year Plan for Life After College published by the Simon & Schuster imprint Adams Media. I

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