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The United States will stop funding for the World Health Organization while a review is underway, President Trump announced.
Speaking at the White House coronavirus briefing, Trump criticized the UN body and claimed that “his mistakes have caused so much death.”
The review will assess the organization’s role in “seriously mishandling and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” he said.
“If WHO had done its job … the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death.”
“It would have been so easy to be honest,” he said of the Geneva-based organization.
Noting that US taxpayers contribute between $ 400 million and $ 500 million annually to the agency, he said: “In contrast, China contributes approximately $ 40 million and even less.”
“We have deep concerns about whether the generosity of the United States has been used to the best of its ability.”
He accused the WHO of “putting political correctness above life-saving measures,” opposing the United States’ decision to impose travel restrictions on China in late January. “One of the WHO’s most dangerous and costly decisions was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations,” he said. Fortunately, I was not convinced and I stopped traveling from China, saving countless lives. Thousands upon thousands of people would have died. If other nations had also suspended travel from China, countless more lives would have been saved, instead, look at the rest of the world, look at parts of Europe. “
Warning
The announcement followed a warning from Trump that it could stop funding for the organization that he accused of being “China-focused.”
He was speaking when tensions between the president and state governors manifested earlier in the day when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Trump was “ruining a fight.”
At a highly combative press conference on Monday night in which the US President. USA Repeatedly attacking the media and defending his handling of the coronavirus crisis, Trump claimed that his presidential power was “total.”
“This is as it should be, and the governors know it,” he said.
But despite Trump’s claims of “ultimate authority,” constitutional experts have pointed out that only governors can make decisions like reopening states. In a series of interviews on Monday, Cuomo said Trump’s claim was “objectively wrong.”
“It is infuriating and offensive and downright ignorant of the facts,” Cuomo said, comparing the Trump press conference to a “comedy parody.”
He later noted that “the relationship between the federal state has been fundamental to our democracy”, since the creation of the United States in the late eighteenth century.
“We don’t have a king in this country. We didn’t want a king. So we have a constitution and we elected a president,” he said. He insisted, however, that he did not want to fight the president. “The president will not have a fight with me. No I’m going to commit. “
Earlier in the day, Trump lashed out at the New York governor who gave him a series of media interviews on Tuesday morning. In a tweet, he said Cuomo had been calling “daily, even hourly, begging for everything, most of which should have been the responsibility of the state.” He also referred to the movie Mutiny on the Bounty, apparently comparing state governors to mutineers.
Cuomo, a Democrat and the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, has seen his national profile rise since the coronavirus hit. His daily briefings from the state capital of Albany have been broadcast live on national television channels, rivaling Trump’s evening press conferences.
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