Kentucky governor on schools closing for extreme cold: 'We're getting soft'

It may not be as cold in Kentucky as it is in Minnesota, but things just got chillier for the state's governor.

A comment Matt Bevin made during a Tuesday radio interview is catching some flak. When 840 WHAS radio host Terry Meiners mentioned Bevin's kids would be up late since there was no school Wednesday, Bevin quipped about canceling for cold. "It's deep freeze; this is serious business,"

Meiners replied; the Washington Post reports the wind chill was predicted to be as low as -15 in some parts. Bevin disagreed: "Come on, now. There's no ice going with it or any snow. What happens to America? We're getting soft, Terry, we're getting soft."

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports the Kentucky Education Association wasn't pleased, tweeting, "We will always support decisions made for the health & safety of Kentucky's children. Always."

While Bevin went on to say he did agree "it's better to err on the side of being safe," he said "it does concern me a little bit that in America ... we're sending messages to our young people that if life is hard, you can curl up in the fetal position somewhere in a warm place and just wait until it stops being hard. And that isn't reality."

The state's 2019 Teacher of the Year challenged Bevin to experience a dose of reality for himself. On Twitter, Jessica Dueñas wrote that she'd "like to see @MattBevin prove how 'hard' he is by standing outside for 30 minutes tomorrow morning as if he were waiting for a bus with less than adequate clothing, like many of KY's Ss would have been due to their lack of resources."

Bevin, not backing down, took to twitter to lash out at the reaction to his comments:



(Read more Matt Bevin stories.)

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