Trump announces US will halt funding to World Health Organization over coronavirus response

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/overnights/492849-overnight-health-care-trump-to-hault-who-funding-amid-review

The WHO has lots of problems and as valid as the complaints against the organization are, he's only doing this to distract from his own failings in preparing and addressing this virus. Even a child can see this.

trump sucks. Remove him in November.

Look even if you have misgivings, some of which I can grant as valid, the WHO is still an organization dedicated to the overall well-being of the world population. And we are in the midst of a global pandemic.

Now is not the time.

I can agree with this. This stuff should wait until the pandemic is over then you go back and see if their where any issues with the WHO then hold them accountable. The political finger pointing for the left and right needs to stop until this is all over.

The WHO has made the global pandemic much worse by just parroting whatever China says. Why would people criticize Trump's response but give Tedros, the head of WHO a pass? Why did he take China's word that the Wuhan virus couldn't be spread person to person? Why did he wait until March 11th to declare it a pandemic when the rest of the world knew about it already? In early January when China was destroying evidence and lying about the virus the WHO said they were doing a great job. Trump acted against the virus on January 31th, much earlier than WHO recommended while he was facing impeachment.

My didn't the WHO criticize China for allowing the people from Wuhan to travel all over the world and infect others? Why didn't they criticize them for kicking out western journalist, silencing their doctors and nurses discussing the virus, and stockpiling supplies to prepare their own people for the pandemic while denying that it could be spread human to human?

I would like to know where the WHO added value and independently performed any kind of analysis to verify anything that China said about this virus. Of course we don't want to dismantle the organization for good, but we need to do a thorough investigation to weed out the incompetence and/or corruption present there.

People relied on the false information from the WHO and died because of it.

Anti-leader man child has another hissy fit and seeks to deflect any blame or accountability for his own shit leadership.

What? There is literally only one person who made the announcement and action and that's Rumpasaurus, why on Earth would we not "point fingers" at something that is his idea and execution? Hell its your thread and it says so right in the title and headline, you know damn well he's in charge of this decision.

You can't deflect blame on this one, there's no one else who it can go to.

Stupid questions. Why didn't they criticize America for loling and doing no production or internal restrictions until midway through March? Why didn't they criticize the European population for smooching each other's cheeks as a greeting? WHO is designed to be an aggregate for health knowledge to combat disease and improve health coverage. They aren't a health police force. And wow hard to imagine why they took China's word when China was the only one with a mass population of virus patients for the first 2 months of it's activity and only source of laboratory information. Hard to fathom!

And sure, as I saidand so you have effectively wasted your time, there are issues. Relying on every country to act in good faith is a bad system. But you haven't made a single good argument to say why now should be the time. Not at all. You said there should be review and oversight of the foundation, and I agree, but dropping funding clearly should have happened, at the very least, after that, if not after an allowance of time for correction.

Also your info on Trump "acting" January 31st is bullshit so don't even start with that. Fucking lol at impeachment as an excuse, so lazy. Or are you admitting that Trump is incapable of thinking about 2 problems, even though he's the biggest smartliest brain in the room?

But anyway China was not actually being blocked, as the "ban" still allowed tens of thousands of Chinese travelers into the country for the months following it due to many, many exceptions. In addition it's very likely he just stole credit from actions that were already being taken in the private sector. And then he said it was all a hoax anyway so ???

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/07/trumps-claim-that-he-imposed-first-china-ban/

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trumps-snowballing-china-travel-claim/

https://apnews.com/0dc271ad7f7917374a5a0cfb49273783

"Most major airlines had already suspended flights to China prior to the announcement on Jan. 31, following the lead of several major international carriers that had stopped due to the coronavirus outbreak. Delta, American and United cited a sharp drop in demand for the flights, and an earlier State Department advisory told Americans not to travel to China because of the outbreak."

@Vaasman: You don't get it do you. Trump had to wait around until the WHO told him what to do. He takes direction from them don't you know? Like all good US Presidents who fall in line and wait for global bodies like the UN, WHO, etc. It's a US tradition don't you know. He sat in the Oval Office with his head in his hands crying....'please Tedros, please call it a pandemic so I can do something'. 'My administration can't approve tests, let alone make them until you tell us'. 'Ventilators, PPE, social distancing guidelines, DPA....I can't do it till you tell me its true.'

Unfortunately he is going to win Biden is Hillary 2.0 but with cognitive decline.

This is the epitome of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Trump, for whatever reason, has done this, and it is a mistake; the WHO screwed up, but they still are an agency for good. We need them. The world is incredibly small these days and we need a resource like the WHO.

We can handle what problems the WHO might have when this is over. I have no doubt there will be a reckoning.

Basically they committed a mistake, but Trump needs to play the blame game, so he's pointing the fingers at them. It's a strategy that works well with his base now they'll say it was WHO's fault despite him saying multiple times this virus wasn't a big deal and the heat would end the crisis by April. -_-

Considering Trump is a reality TV star that bankrupted most of his businesses and scammed thousands of people, which forced a shutdown of his university and non-profit organization... someone who has dementia doesn't seem like the worse thing in the world.

Shit, when you put it that way....

The WHO didn't just take China's word, they including American doctors/researchers were in Wuhan since mid-January. Check this on the WHO website including all the below:

You do realise China release the genetic sequence on 12 January as soon as they had it.

On 14 January, WHO put out a notice that COVID-19 was likely to be transmissible between humans.

So how can you blame the WHO and China?

As Paula Reid asked Trump, "What did you do in February?"

There were issues with the response everywhere and Trump's actions just keep making everything worse. But hey there's an election to be had you have to keep your base galvanized.

Ah impeachment talking points. trump can't do his job because the House/Senate were involved in impeachment. But he sure as hell got his fat ass out to golf multiple times while impeachment was going on. He sure as hell got his fat ass out to his rallies while impeachment was going on. But do his damn job? Hell no, he couldn't do that.

trump apologists make me sick.

Then when is the time? Even if the Chinese Virus wasn't floating around, people would still cry that now isn't the time. Considering the long list of failures by the WHO...................

We need to deal with the present situation, then we can look back and point fingers all we want. Where did WHO fail? Is it systemic changes that WHO need, or is it the people filling these different roles that aren't doing their job properly.

So, according to the "left", now is not the time to point fingers and decry failures of the WHO but they have spent the last few months doing nothing but point fingers at the Trump administration and point out percieved failures in addressing the issue. Seems to be a consistency problem that could be labeled as hypocrisy by the "right".

Hasn't the US already given the, what is it, ~400B to the WHO already? If true, any halt in funding would only effect next years budget and not their ability to operate this year. By that time they should be able to give a corrective action plan to address the issues and recieve their next grant on schedule.

The reason they didn't criticize the US or even Europe is because everyone was operating under the guidelines they released!

If you had done any kind of investigation they could have seen the claims coming out of China were bogus. The WSJ did an extensive article showing how China suppressed information released by nurses, doctors, and others. Instead of criticizing China the WHO said they did a fantastic job.

You don't think the WHO could have actually independently looked at the information coming out of China the same way the WSJ did and figured out what they were saying was bogus? Maybe when De Blasio and the NY health minister were telling people to go to the parades in Chinatown, to restaurants

https://qns.com/story/2020/02/14/mayor-dines-in-flushing-to-encourage-new-yorkers-to-visit-the-neighborhood-amid-coronavirus-scare/

and that

“The risk for New Yorkers of the coronavirus is low, and our preparedness as a city is very high. While it is understandable that people feel anxious, that is no way shape or form an excuse for them to use that as an opportunity to spread misinformation, to spread racist ideas because that is currently the greatest risk to New Yorker’s.”

That statement was made in March! Cuomo and De Blasio were downplaying the threat until mid March. How many people died from "racist ideas" such as not going to large gatherings or avoiding close proximity to people the last few months in New York vs. the coronavirus?

The only thing I can find that the WHO did was to immediately tell people to stop calling the Wuhan virus since their Chinese government masters told them to say that.

I never said Trump couldn't handle both impeachment and the Wunan virus, but that it distracted the entire country. Remember that Congress was shut down and the entire media was focused on impeachment while the virus was spreading. Maybe instead of bringing impeachment to fulfill a campaign progress for people that howl at the moon in denial that Clinton lost they could have been focused on helping the business of the country.

Biden and the media/democrats wouldn't have done a travel ban. They said it was Xenophobic, racist, and alarmist. Right afterwards CNN did a piece saying why it's wrong to institute a travel ban. They never once said it was the right thing to do or that airlines led the way

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/health/coronavirus-travel-ban/index.html

The head of WHO also said to NOT DO TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

“We reiterate our call to all countries not to impose restrictions that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday during a briefing to the UN’s executive board in Geneva.

https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-04-20/h_267d4c445f4bf4730abca05eccc62c67

This is the absolute wrong advice and thank goodness countries decided to go against their corrupt recommendation. They were more concerned about appeasing China than public health

2017 Video of Dr. Larry Brilliant alerting how both the Trump administration and WHO were not prepared for a pandemic. It's a really interesting video to watch, specially considering it's a 2017 video.

@horgen: "We need to deal with the present situation, then we can look back and point fingers all we want."

I completely disagree. We rarely go back to post mortem after-the-fact, and those who want to avoid accountability always trot out the "now is not the time" excuse.

Now is not the time to cut funding to the WHO without a good reason, but by all means analyze their response and lay blame where applicable.

I can blame China because they've known about the virus since November, reprimanded doctors and nurses that tried to warn people about, stockpiled equipment for themselves while downplaying the risk to the world. They even destroyed evidence of the virus in December

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-scientists-destroyed-proof-of-virus-in-december-rz055qjnj

"In Wuhan, local leaders were accused of telling doctors in December not to publicize the spreading virus in order to avoid casting a shadow over the annual meeting of a local legislative body.

As the virus spread, doctors were ordered to delete posts on social media that appealed for donations of medical supplies. That prompted complaints authorities were more worried about image than public safety."

https://apnews.com/6f2e666485e9abae4bb112251eca77be

China also threatened to withhold life saving medications from the US including to treat the Wuhan virus, saying it would lunge America into "the mighty sea of coronavirus."

The WHO also said in January 14th that:

“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China.”

Taiwan also told the WHO that it could be spread human to human, but they ignored them because their puppet master China doesn't recognize Taiwan

https://news.yahoo.com/taiwan-accuses-failing-heed-warning-143800176.html

In February Trump was setting up the Coronovirus task force, briefing lawmakers, working on test kits, did a travel ban against Iran and Italy, etc. What did the Democrats say about the Wuhan virus during the debates before Februray? That's right, they didn't bring it up until South Carolina on Feb 25th. What were Nancy Pelosi, De Blasio and the rest of the democrats doing in February? Telling people to and gather in large groups and to fight against "racism" instead of the virus.

Funny that the same people who for 3 years falsely accused Trump or anyone associated with him of being a Russian agent are now acting following orders from China

I don't want those responsible to get of scoff free (or whatever the phrase is). However if there is a human capacity bottleneck here, more resources needs to be spent on how to deal with the situation.

Now Trump seems like a guy with lots of spare time. He can analyze and blame all he wants. :P

@Maxpowers_32:

Funny that the same people who for 3 years falsely accused Trump or anyone associated with him of being a Russian agent are now acting following orders from China

Defund the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic. Brilliant.

@Serraph105: He's a very stable genius you know?

Well, we do have a small little thing called a PANDEMIC going on.

According to some, there is never a time in which to cut funding......which, btw, the United States gives a hell of a lot of $$$$ to the WHO in case you were not aware. Someone above listed quite the additional failures of the body. It's humorous how certain facts can be ignored if it harms an agenda.

@Solaryellow: At best this would be the time to call for immediate resignation. Maybe together with other major donor countries create a temporary crisis administration.

This is reckless and shows the usual lack of vision coming from Trump.

@Vaasman:Also, I did not mention that Trump never called the virus a hoax! Please stop spreading fake news/misinformation. I'm sure you believe it because you read it from a fake news site like the NBC. If you actually listened to or read what he said you can clearly see he referred to the virus itself as a hoax. He called the Democrats attack on him a hoax, just like the Russian delusion and multiple other fake chargers. If you have any basic critical thinking skills you cant ell he was talking about the democrats politicizing the virus. Here is what he said

Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa, they can’t even count. No they can’t. They can’t count their votes.

One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that.

The WHO did take a weirdly long time to declare it a pandemic. Apparently for financial reasons? Maybe it didn't turn out to be so financially fruitful now that Trump temporarily pulls support.

I am not necessarily against this. But it may be better to do this after the corona stuff.

Biden isn't any better. At least with Trump we might get 6 years to fix the issue of climate change instead of 2 with Biden.

Money talks and bullshit walks. More often than not people and groups need a penalty before compliance takes place or at the very least the threat of a penalty. If the WHO can not effectively exist and function w/o money from the United States tax payers, something is wrong there. Of course the easiest approach (firing/resignation) would be ideal but we don't live in an ideal world.

Think of the reaction when Congress doesn't do its job. How many times will people say to not pay them because they aren't earning the money? With the WHO I don't believe one man is the fall guy.

A change will be made and we'll start funding again.

@Solaryellow: If something is wrong that doesn't mean that those who depend on WHO's work deserve to be affected by this. This recklessness will mainly hurt the poor.

It's the usual lack of leadership and vision from Trump. It will only create a void for others to fill when this was an opportunity to gain influence.

I wonder if it occurred to anyone that the number of times Trump was tricked by China, North Korea, Russia and Turkey. Or have been made fun publicly by allies and rivals is not a sign of greatness or respect. He's the weakest US president I have memory of and his isolationism is not only outdated, it shows a severe lack of vision and a lack of understanding of the place the US occupied in the world before him. He has no diplomacy skills and international relations for him have the subtlety of a client/whore interaction.

It's not by accident that allies want him gone while rival nation make everything to have him relected.

The only saving grace is that it's good for laughs.

China was indeed aware of the virus by late November, it was also reported in the news! I was in China from 17 November last year, 1.40 billion people in China read about it. So what is your point? My 12-year-old daughter knew this, so I am quite sure the mighty US government was aware of this too.

Stockpiling equipment...hmm ok so there's a pandemic in China, do you expect China to export the equipment when it needed it themselves, produced and manufactured by Chinese companies?

You do realise China is not a US colony? It can consume the things they produce! LOL!

Moreover, China donated 1,000 ventilators to the US just a week ago! Even Jack Ma donated masks and PPE equipment to the US.

Yes,14th January there was still no clear evidence of human to human transmission, according to the preliminary data, not sure why that is a problem here. It's a preliminary study, they found out later human-to-human transmission is possible. If another source suspected otherwise then fine.

I don't think Trump was doing anything in February, on 25th February Trump said this:

The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!

As said, the genetic sequence was released on 12 January. So what more do you need?

Hold on a second, in your opinion has Trump done a good job?

Why don't you take a little responsibility? Trump fxxked up BIG TIME!

@kadin_kai: WHO should have answered "We don't know" when asked about human to human transmission.

I fail to see how the United States should be the, once again, leading contributor to the world's well-being especially when the organization seems riddled with ineptness. Have you looked at the list of top contributors and which nations are contributing a pittance? China, which started this fiasco, doesn't give nearly enough. That's would be a good laugh if it weren't embarrassing and a slap in the face.

I'll ask/mention it again but if the sky will suddenly fall because the leading contributor is pulling back, do you not recognize or acknowledge a problem somewhere within the organization?

Wowee can you taste your own butt from how much you bent into a pretzel twisting what was said? He clearly called it a hoax dude, right there in your own quote. Pretending he's talking about "politicizing" is a desperate strawman born from poor comprehension, it doesn't change that he called it a hoax. He immediately spoke about the small number of confirmed infected right after, to wave off the value of the virus, meaning he's specifically talking about it and not just it's politicizing.

Also lol at what I have to assume was a typo in the first paragraph. Going off script doesn't keep the story clear.

As much as Trump is an idiot, the WHO did tremendously drop the ball with this pandemic. Taiwan had been warning them at the beginning about the serious nature of this infection, and the WHO choose to ignore them and listen to China who initially said, "nothing to see here, all is good". An organization dedicated to the improvement of world health shouldn't be so easily influenced by major players. Shame on them.

Some of the membership of the WHO is from nations not on the up & up and the organization gets information from these countries as in the case of the Chinese Virus and goes with it. This isn't the first time the WHO screwed up and cost many lives.

I thought he was in total control and thus totally responsible for the inaction of the US response and massive loss of life.

I'm not twisted anything at all. I was trying to type it quickly and left a typo. As you can see I spent a lot of time typing on this forum and put a typo in there.

Let's try a basic reading comprehension test as if you were in 2nd grade. Look at Trump's quote in italics. What do you think "This" refers to when he says "this is their new hox"?

Let me help you out. even more by giving you the preceding paragraph

Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa, they can’t even count. No they can’t. They can’t count their votes.

One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that.

Let's see... he was talking about Russia, impeachment, and Democrats efforts to politicize the coronovirus and how incompetent Democrats are. Take off your "Orange man bad", TDS, howling at the moon, faking hate crimes, crying to psychologist mindset for a minute and try to think like a rational human being. When he says "their new hoax". Who does "their" refer to? Is it the people infected by the virus? The American people in general? China? Russia? The WHO? No, it's the same people that tried to impeach him for Russia and 85 other reasons since he got elected

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/26/86-things-democrats-have-cited-as-reasons-to-impeach-trump/

In other words, "their" refers to the Democrats/media. So "their new hoax" means the same Democrats/media that have politicized everything the past 3+ years are now politicizing the coronovirus. Get it?

Out of curiostity, do you fault the Democrats and other leaders from around the world who not only didn't try to stop the virus, but actively told people they were racist if they didn't go out and eat in Chinese restaurants and congregate in large crowds? Do you think De Blasio did a good job? Pelosi? Biden? Sanders? Do you think Sanders would have shut down flights and closed the borders?

Exactly! If you don't know for sure and didn't do your own test don't go out and tell people you don't think it can be spread that way.

Can you point to any world leader that did a better job than Trump around the world? Do you think the

Do you really think news about the virus being a pandemic reached Trump in November? What was China saying about the coronovirus back then? Why did China suppress the doctors and nurses who were trying to warn people about the virus?

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-02-06/coronavirus-china-xi-li-wenliang

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51364382

When the doctors said it was being spread person to person why did China threaten them? Why was China stockpiling supplies to face a pandemic if they didn't think it could be spread person to person? When they did find out it could be spread person to person why did they wait a week to tell anyone and let people from Wuhan travel all over the world?

https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-coronavirus-likely-pandemic-warning-ap

That's the thing. If they knew more than Trump, who by all left accounts did nothing, why didn't they do something earlier and something sensible? My state inconsistently shut down a month ago. A month!

Yea it could be that you type a lot, and it could be that you're yet another hacked account with less than 1000 posts but 15 years old who has conveniently become very active after a decade of little or no inactivity. But that's neither here nor there.

Your pathetic desperation to contort reality hasn't helped. He very explicitly called the infected numbers out right after saying it's a hoax. He's referring directly to the virus. End-o-story.

Even assuming that you were right, coronavirus is still the hoax centrally being referenced. Your garbage logic is that, we should assume when he speaks of the "Russian hoax," we should assume he talks about all evidence associated, that the core of the debate is the hoax. But when he speaks of this hoax, it's suddenly only about the politics. Pure bullshit.

Quoting federalist is embarrassing by the way, why did you bother?

Talking about Democrats is just another extremely lazy deflection attempt. None of them are president right now so your speculation is meaningless. But since you insist I can tell you with a comfortable degree of certainty that Biden and Sanders would do better because they would defer to their experts and make informed decisions. Pelosi managed stimulus material for unemployment and increased spending to at-need individuals in the house. De Blasio can only do so much as a mayor when the governor and federal level aid is not meeting his asks.

@Vaasman: Was Jacanuk banned?

@Maxpowers_32: What about trump knowing about coronavirus in December and doing nothing until a month later?