iStock/Jikaboom(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — In an unprecedented move on Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced he will withhold funding to the World Health Organization — a move he’s threatened for weeks.
“I’m instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the world health organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” he announced during the White House daily briefing regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
The president added he said WHO failed “to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts.”
In addition, Republican senators demanded information from the World Health Organization on Tuesday regarding where the COVID-19 pandemic originated — with some senators believing the virus was conceived in a Chinese lab — and are requesting any documents, records or information related to the investigation.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson said the WHO’s delay in responding to the pandemic is why funding should be withheld. “American taxpayers fund the WHO, and it is up to us to make sure those taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely,” he remarked.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy decried the conspiracy theory that China created COVID-19 as a bio weapon, saying Republicans are trying “to find current scapegoats.” As for accountability of the global pandemic, the senator said that the WHO “made mistakes. China made egregious mistakes…It was the president and his team that made a series of blunders, too.”
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