White House senior adviser Jared Kushner on Sunday said he will send his children to school this fall and has “no fear in doing so” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In an interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” President Donald Trump’s son-in-law said he was “absolutely” secure in his confidence his children will be safe “based on the data and the science that I've been given.”
“Children have a six times higher chance to die from the flu than from the coronavirus,” he said.
“So based on the data I've seen, I don't believe that that's a risk. Again, this virus impacts different people in different ways. We know a lot more now than we did. And assuming- our school is not opening up five days a week, I wish they were, but we absolutely will be sending our kids back to school and I have no fear in doing so.”
Kushner also pushed back on doubts about voting in person, warning instead that mail-in voting could undermine voters’ confidence.
Top infectious disease specialist “Dr. [Anthony] Fauci said this week that there should be no fear for people to go out and vote in person,” Kushner said.
“I have a friend in New Jersey just got married, he added. “That person got sent two ballots, one in her old name and one in her new name. I think what President Trump wants is a fair election.
“If you have a tried and true system where they've been doing it like absentee ballots, where there's some security mechanisms built in, that's totally acceptable. That's a great thing to do. But you can't have a new system being tried where there's not the right time to do it and expect them to get it right and then expect that Americans will have confidence in the elections.”
Kushner also called it “very negative framing” when asked about hostilities overnight in Gaza that underscore conflict in the Middle East, despite last week’s historic agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
“Look, in the last 26 years, this is the first peace agreement that we've had between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, between an Arab country and the Jewish country, coming together, putting old conflicts behind,” he said.
“I think that we're dealing with Israel, and they'll, you know, deal with it accordingly,” he added of the continuing hostilities between Israel and Palestinians. “This flares up every now and then. But what we've done is we've outreached to Palestinians. We've put a big plan on the table.”