Trump is 'flipping out' because his botched school opening plan will be 'very, very damaging': disaster relief expert

Disaster relief expert Jeremy Konyndyk believes President Donald Trump is scrambling to push schools to reopen this fall because he knows failing to do so will all but doom his 2020 reelection.

Konyndyk, a former Director of USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, has written a Twitter thread dissecting the president's threats to cut off funds to schools that don't open on time -- and he believes the president is rushing to make up for lost time caused by his own incompetence.

"The reason the White House is suddenly flipping out about this is that they're realizing the die is already cast, and it will be very, very damaging politically," he writes.

Konyndyk then breaks down what the White House should have been doing for the past several months to make sure schools are ready to open their doors in the fall.

"We could have been in a plausible position to reopen (most) schools this fall if we'd begun preparing several months ago," he writes. "The country needed to do two big things: 1) Bring down overall levels of transmission 2) Plan, fund, and implement guidance on safe adaptation of schooling. But we did neither of these things."

Konyndyk then marvels at the fact that the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are still fighting over reopening guidelines in mid-July, with mere weeks to go before school is supposed to start.

"At this point, it's far too late," he writes. "Schools would normally start in 6-7 weeks. Which means they need to make their decisions within the next 2-3 weeks. And the state of the US outbreak response in 2-3 weeks is going to be... rough."

Read the whole thread here.