Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed former President Donald Trump on Tuesday for the current standoff between the city’s public schools and the teachers’ union.
Lightfoot’s comments, which she made on CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday, marked a reversal of what she said a day earlier on MSNBC, when she called the Chicago situation “exclusively local”.
Quitting naming Trump, Lightfoot said the stalemate between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) over whether teachers should return to classrooms this week was “because of the incompetence of the previous administration”.
CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION CREATING ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ STANDARD FOR SCHOOL REOPENING: MOLLIE HEMINGWAY
“I think it is important for both sides to come to the table in good faith, to recognize that we are both trying to overcome a very challenging situation, but we need to close a deal,” said Lightfoot.
Later, she added: “These are really difficult times in a pandemic, exacerbated by the incompetence of the previous government that did not leave us with enough vaccine to reach the entire population of our city in need very quickly. But we are going to continue working hard recognizing the concern that all our residents really have about COVID-19. ”
The Democratic mayor appeared on CNN, but did not offer a press conference to the students’ parents.
CTU led a teacher strike in October 2019 that lasted 11 days, during which more than 300,000 students had unscheduled days off. Fox News contacted the mayor’s office asking whether Trump was also to blame for the strike, but received no response.
Lightfoot and CPS CEO Janice Jackson issued a joint statement on Monday night, saying that CPS had stepped back in its threat to block K-8 teachers from their remote learning tools if they failed to appear in its facilities this week to prepare for return face-to-face classes.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
The union had already threatened that its members would picket if they were denied access to programs they have been using to instruct students remotely.
Fox News Greg Norman contributed to this report.