Official White House Photo by Shealah CraigheadBy LIBBY CATHEY, ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is demanding the Trump White House release highly anticipated guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how states should safely reopen, which were reportedly shelved, as President Donald Trump ramps up his push for the country to get back to work.
“The point is that America needs — and must have — the candid guidance of our best scientists, unfiltered, unedited, uncensored by President Trump for his political minions,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.
“The CDC report on reopening the country is an important piece of that guidance,” Schumer said, calling on his colleagues to pass by unanimous consent a resolution requesting immediate release of the report, reportedly titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework.”
The White House on Friday claimed the guidelines, delayed for weeks, are still “in the editing process.”
Schumer’s move comes one day after other senators questioned the status of the guidelines as most states started to reopen without meeting the White House’s “gating criteria” of a 14-day downward trajectory of cases to do so.
While CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield testified Tuesday that the new guidance would go online “soon,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said the delay “isn’t very helpful.”
The nation’s top expert on infectious diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Tuesday in the videoconference hearing about the deadly risks of moving too fast.
“When you jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up, without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently, my concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks,” Fauci said. “If that occurs, there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you might not be able to control.”
As the president insists the onus is on governors to keep outbreaks under control, the University of Washington’s IHME model, a key forecasting tool used by the White House, has revised its model upward, predicting more than 147,000 deaths from COVID-19 by early August, as of Wednesday morning.
President Trump Wednesday afternoon is hosting the governors of Colorado and North Dakota — two states with lower case counts which are already reopening and can be expected to praise their efforts, despite concerns from the nation’s top health experts, and as more questions are raised around the delayed CDC guidance.
Here are Wednesday’s most significant developments in Washington:
Pompeo lands in Tel Aviv wearing a mask
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was photographed donning a mask for the first time in public since the CDC issued guidance on facial coverings when he landed in Tel Aviv Wednesday morning.
Glad to be in Israel to coordinate with @IsraeliPM @Netanyahu and @Gantzbe on countering two critical threats: COVID-19 and Iran. Israel and the United States will take on these challenges side-by-side. pic.twitter.com/aSrzD8MhkS
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) May 13, 2020
Pompeo is in Israel for meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the prime minister’s new governing partner, Benny Gantz, to discuss the coronavirus, Iran and Israel’s possible annexation of parts of the West Bank.
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.