by Mary Margaret Olohan
Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham slammed the World Health Organization as “incompetent” and supported President Donald Trump’s decision to cut the WHO’s funding.
Graham discussed POTUS’s decision in a statement Wednesday after Trump officially cut off U.S. funding for the WHO on Tuesday over the WHO’s contributions to China’s misinformation on the coronavirus pandemic. The United States has been the WHO’s largest donor for many years.
“The WHO’s reliance on China’s disclosures likely caused a twenty-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that,” Trump said Tuesday when he announced the decision. “The WHO has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there are many.”
The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2020
“Cutting off funding at this time is the right move,” Graham said in his statement. “This is a critical time for worldwide public health and we cannot afford China apologists running the WHO. I support a suspension of funding by the United States until there is new leadership at the WHO.”
The South Carolina senator noted that he has “a lot of respect” for Bill Gates and Gates’s work in the public health arena, but said that “Gates’ decision to defend the performance of the WHO during the coronavirus crisis and current WHO leadership ignores overwhelming evidence of China bias and incompetence.”
“If someone like Bill Gates were in charge of the WHO I would gladly support increased funding. But I have lost all confidence in the current WHO leadership and capabilities,” Graham said.
He added: “The world needs a competent WHO. But the days of throwing money at an incompetent organization are over under President Trump’s leadership.”
Most other Republicans are on board with Trump’s decision to cut the WHO’s funding, and many Republican lawmakers have called for the president to do so.
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Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
