Dr. Phil Goes on Bizarre COVID Rant Against Elementary School Shutdowns on 'The View': 'They Suffered!'

Dr. Phil McGraw ranted about the damage that was done to children by shutting down public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conversation began during his Monday, February 26, appearance on The View, after Sara Haines asked him to weigh in on the potentially negative effects that access to social media can have on young kids.

"They stopped living their lives, and started watching people live their lives," Dr. Phil replied. "And so we saw the biggest spike and the highest levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidality since records have ever been kept. And, it’s just continued on and on and on.”

"And then COVID hits 10 years later, and the same agencies that knew that, are the agencies that shut down the schools for two years," he added. "Who does that?"

Sunny Hostin argued there was a pandemic going on and those decisions were made because they were "trying to save people's lives."

Panel moderator Whoopi Goldberg also warned the former psychologist that they "know know a lot of folks who died during this," to which McGraw responded, "Not school children."

"Well, you know what, we’re lucky," the Sister Act star replied. "Maybe we’re lucky they didn’t, because we kept them out of the places they could be sick, because no one wanted to believe we had an issue!"

Ana Navarro then cut in and asked him to clarify if he believes "no schoolchildren" passed away from COVID.

"I’m saying it was the safest group. They were the less vulnerable group," he said. "And they suffered, and will suffer, more from the mismanagement of COVID than they will from the exposure to COVID. And that’s not an opinion, that’s a fact."

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This isn't the first time Dr. Phil has been outspoken about his views regarding the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The television host came under fire when he compared pandemic deaths to car accidents and cigarette use.

"The fact of the matter is, the longer this lockdown goes on, the more vulnerable people get," he said at the time. "And it's like there's a tipping point. There's a point at which people start having enough problems in lockdown that it will actually create more destruction and actually more deaths across time than the actual virus will itself."

"We have people dying, 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 a year from swimming pools, but we don’t shut the country down for that, but yet we’re doing it for this?" he continued. "And the fallout is going to last for years because people’s lives are being destroyed."