Fox News Panel Blows Up Over ‘Disinformation’ on Protecting Children From Covid: ‘Hands Off My Kids!’

The Faulkner Focus erupted when American Conservative Union leader Matt Schlapp and a Fox News Democratic guest panelist slugged it out over the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on children’s education.

Schlapp and former Ohio congressional candidate Desiree Tims joined Harris Faulkner on Tuesday to discuss the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ (NAEP) assessment that math and reading scores significantly declined among grade schoolers in recent years. Parents have blamed school closures and pandemic policies for the drop, so criticism has been directed at American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, plus Democrats who supported school lockdowns.

The conversation began when Tims defended how schools were closed and kids were kept home while the pandemic was sweeping across the country in the last 2 years.

“We absolutely did not have a choice but to keep our children home. Better yet, the story is not how many children died during Covid because we shoved them into classrooms,” she said. “The Covid spread is very, very real so yeah. It’s something we have to fix, but it was a pandemic, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I have faith in our children’ ability to climb back to the top.”

Schlapp was then given the chance to respond, so he contended that “As the father of five daughters who went through this intimately as parents did across the country, our schools were shut and my kids go to Catholic schools. The state told them they also had to shut, but then they started to push back when they realized kids weren’t dying from the virus as was feared in the beginning.” He also bashed Democrats for resisting Republican efforts to quickly reopen schools in the midst of the health crisis.

Faulkner tried to switch topics, but Tims responded to Schlapp by saying “I just want to come back to Covid-19 disinformation that he just said. Children can absolutely get Covid-19 and they can die just as well.”

Both Faulkner and Schlapp denied that the latter said that children couldn’t contract Covid. The Fox host accused Tims of pushing pre-packaged “talking points” while Tims implored “Please vaccinate your children and have their wear masks.”

“Are you a doctor?” Faulkner asked. Schlapp also shot back “my children will not be vaccinated.” He followed that declaration by accusing Tims of “misinformation,” exclaiming that “even the CDC says they are not saying it should be a mandate for kids to be vaccinated. Those vaccines are not approved for kids. It is wrong for you to say that.”

“Misinformation,” Tims rebutted. As it were, the CDC recently authorized the use of updated Covid vaccines for 5-11 year old children, plus the CDC is moving to add Covid vaccines to their recommended schedule of immunizations offered to children and adults.

Faulkner was able to move the discussion along eventually, but only after Schlapp shouted “hands off my kids! They’re my kids,” while Tims muttered again about the “disinformation.”

Watch above via Fox News.