On Monday morning’s CNN Newsroom, host Jim Sciutto brought on Oklahoma special education teacher and former Trump voter Nancy Shively to gush over an op-ed she wrote for USA Today in which she accused President Trump of “asking us to risk our health and our very lives” for recommending that schools reopen in the fall. Sciutto praised her for having a “backbone,” told her that she “spoke strongly and with feeling,” and did not question her insane assertion that she “signed” her “death warrant” by voting for Trump in 2016.
Sciutto began the interview by applauding the op-ed and teeing Shively up to make deranged statements about the President:
SCIUTTO: You spoke strongly and -- and with feeling in this editorial. And -- and you say you’re haunted by your vote for President Trump in 2016 because you fear that now with the pandemic, you may have signed your own death warrant -- warrant. That -- that's a remarkable thought to express. Explain how you came to that view.
SHIVELY: Well, just watching the failure of leadership in our country beginning with the President over the course of this pandemic, it's -- it’s not just my death warrant I might have signed, but there's 150,000 Americans who are dead because of this. And, you know, I have to take responsibility for my personal vote that enabled that.
Sciutto did not question these absurd proclamations, despite that children rarely transmit COVID-19 and that even if they do, the virus currently has a .26% death rate in the United States. Clearly Sciutto would rather engage in fear mongering in order to undermine Trump and make it look like the Democrats can handle the virus better.
The Democratic shill then sympathized with Shively by declaring that people who attack the President put themselves at risk:
I wonder in this environment, when -- when folks stick their neck out -- stick their necks out right, right? And -- and make comments like this on this president, that they're often attacked. What's the reaction been to -- to writing this op-ed?
Sciutto then praised her again by saying “it takes backbone” to write an article like she did and allowed her to continue her anti-Trump diatribe:
In fact, what prompted me to write the -- the opinion piece was a comment by one of my colleagues. She's -- she’s a younger woman. She has some chronic health issues that her doctors told her would lead to a very poor outcome should she get COVID. . And she said -- her comment was I'm -- I’m just upping my life insurance and hoping for the best. And that's tragic....there's millions of teachers who can't leave the profession that are going to literally be risking their lives under the leadership that we have that has continually abdicated their responsibility. It's -- it’s -- it’s a cascading failure...from the President down to Oklahoma's governor, down to school boards until it gets to the two groups of people who can't pass the buck, and that's teachers and children.
Only making Trump look bad and the Democrats look good matters to CNN and it will use anyone it can to do that, no matter how unhinged they are.
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Read the full August 3rd transcript here:
CNN's New Day
08/03/20
9:25:31 AM
JIM SCIUTTO: Well, the largest school district in Georgia says as many as 260 employees have either tested positive for coronavirus or been exposed to someone who has. Gwinnett County schools reopen with online earning -- learning on August 12th. It is not yet known how this will impact those reopening plans. Educators across the country fear that large COVID-19 outbreaks in districts planning in-person classes this fall. One teacher in Oklahoma addressed her concerns in an op-ed for USA Today, writing, and were quoting: “Oklahoma teachers are as tough as they come. Some have sheltered their students as a tornado ripped the school building from over their heads. Now the man I gambled on to be president is asking us to risk our health and our very lives. The odds are most definitely not in our favor.” Nancy Shively is a special education teacher in the shia -- Skiatook school district near Tulsa and she joins me now. Nancy, good to have you on this morning.
NANCY SHIVELY (SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER): Thank you.
SCIUTTO: You spoke strongly and -- and with feeling in this editorial. And -- and you say you’re haunted by your vote for President Trump in 2016 because you fear that now with the pandemic, you may have signed your own death warrant -- warrant. That -- that's a remarkable thought to express. Explain how you came to that view.
SHIVELY: Well, just watching the failure of leadership in our country beginning with the President over the course of this pandemic, it's -- it’s not just my death warrant I might have signed, but there's 150,000 Americans who are dead because of this. And, you know, I have to take responsibility for my personal vote that enabled that.
SCIUTTO: I wonder in this environment, when -- when folks stick their neck out -- stick their necks out right, right? And -- and make comments like this on this president, that they're often attacked. What's the reaction been to -- to writing this op-ed?
SHIVELY: Well, it's been interesting. I have not been attacked so much by Trump supporters as I have by liberals and never-Trumpers who have been highly critical that I didn't see it before --
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SHIVELY: -- is mostly what they're saying. And I have to say I wasn't paying attention. I should have been and I wasn't. There's a lot of reasons for that and I regret that obviously now. But, I'm trying to take responsibility for that and own it publicly.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, well listen, it takes -- it takes backbone. And -- and that -- that -- that -- that --that's lacking in many quarters in this country today. I -- I wonder when you speak to other teachers, because you’re -- you’re -- you're not the only teacher who -- who’s expressing concern about, in effect, being forced to go back to work in the middle of the pandemic. Are -- are -- are there others who -- who share your view, who -- who say listen, we've got to think about this hard before we do this?
SHIVELY: Well, absolutely. In fact, what prompted me to write the -- the opinion piece was a comment by one of my colleagues. She's -- she’s a younger woman. She has some chronic health issues that her doctors told her would lead to a very poor outcome should she get COVID. And she said -- her comment was I'm -- I’m just upping my life insurance and hoping for the best. And that's tragic.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SHIVELY: And -- and, you know, I'm -- I’m at the end of my career, but she's not, you know? They -- they -- she -- there's millions of teachers who can't leave the profession that are going to literally be risking their lives under the leadership that we have that has continually abdicated their responsibility. It's -- it’s -- it’s a cascading failure --
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SHIVELY: from -- from the President down to Oklahoma's governor, down to school boards until it gets to the two groups of people who can't pass the buck, and that's teachers and children.
SCIUTTO: Yeah. Now, you -- you teach special education, so -- so I -- I don't have to tell you the downsides, right, of distance learning. In effect, it's hard with any child to get them --
SHIVELY: Yeah.
SCIUTTO: -- same classroom experience via a computer, via zoom class, et cetera. So -- so how do you balance the loss, right, in terms of instruction by doing this from afar in the midst of a pandemic -- pandemic?
SHIVELY: Right, it’s -- it is not ideal, obviously. Especially when you're talking about -- about special needs students. But the assumption that going back to in-person classes is going to be the same, that's not true. It's going to fundamentally change the way teachers provide instruction in class. It's going to impact that. So we're left with two really less than optimal options. Yes, there's problems with distance learning, but there's also going to be problems with in-person learning. And I feel that we're conducting a -- this vast experiment at the cost of probably health and --
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SHIVELY: -- lives of teachers and children.
SCIUTTO: The -- the President tweeted again this morning it's time for schools to reopen. He -- he’s -- his administration is even applying financial pressure, threatening to withhold funding from states and districts that do not reopen. What's your response when the President puts pressure on teachers like yourself, school districts like the one you work in?
SHIVELY: I -- I work in a Title 1 school, so funding is -- is tight to begin with. Oklahoma has historically underfunded education. And so we're on shoestring budgets as it is. And so to put that kind of pressure on teachers and schools is -- is cruel actually. There was a -- a piece in the -- I believe it was The Washington Post this weekend of a superintendent in Arizona saying you know, these are -- this piece this is where we are. These are our choices and there's not any good ones. So holding money over the head of people that are already underpaid in a system that's underfunded is wrong.
