Blame the WHO
To get revenge for his failures Trump is pushing to destroy the WHO altogether.
Trump and his top aides are working behind the scenes to sideline the World Health Organization on several new fronts as they seek to shift blame for the coronavirus pandemic to the world body, according to U.S. and foreign officials involved in the discussions.
Last week, the president announced a 60-day hold on U.S. money to the WHO, but other steps by his top officials go beyond a temporary funding freeze, raising concerns about the permanent weakening of the organization amid a rapidly spreading crisis.
At the State Department, officials are stripping references to the WHO from coronavirus fact sheets, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has instructed his employees to “cut out the middle man” when it comes to public health initiatives the United States previously supported through the WHO.
They’re redirecting money that would have gone to the WHO to public health NGOs.
At the United Nations Security Council, the Trump administration has delayed a resolution responding to the health crisis, which the French have been trying to advance for weeks, because it disagrees with draft language that expresses support for the WHO, European officials said.
And they blocked that G-20 statement on the pandemic because it failed to say “the WHO sucks.”
The White House is imploring allies to question the organization’s credibility and push claims that its employees routinely go on excessive “luxury travel,” as one White House official, Sarah Makin Acciani, told a group of surrogates in a recent phone call without offering evidence, a transcript of which has been obtained by The Post.
How repulsive – especially from Trump and his gang, who rack up huge Secret Service bills for Trump and his entire family every weekend.
European officials view domestic American politics as an obstacle to an effective response to the crisis.
“The U.S. administration is very fixated on the reelection campaign and on who can get blamed for this catastrophic covid-19 situation in the U.S.,” said a senior European official. “They are blaming WHO and China for it. Therefore it is very difficult to agree on a common language about the WHO.”
Scapegoat much?
Not working out all that well for him thus far… not that everyone is cheering the WHO on or anything, but reviews of his handling of the situation track very closely to his approval rating (which is very much reverting to the mean, GG on taking advantage of the situation to increase your approval rating).
Keith Moon and John Entwhistle have been dead for years, so I’m guessing Roger and Pete have been very naughty boys?
This is the arsonist blaming the fire on a faulty smoke alarm.
Did WHO push untested, unsafe and fatal “cures” for COVID-19? Did the WHO tie up Donald Trump and keep him from doing anything useful for weeeks and weeeeeks? Did they force him at gunpoint to play golf, and hold rallies? Did they suggest the “it’ll be down to zero” and “disappear like a miracle” wording of his brain farts?
If the information from WHO was questionable (though Trump had praised China and the WHO for their transparency; hey, we all get it wrong sometimes), a real leader would have gotten in front of the curve, acting in a precautionary manner, assuming that things might be worse than was being reported. Media reports coming out of China that the Chinese were trying to build hospitals IN DAYS (Jan 24ish) should have been the trigger to activate plans in the US. Trump had ignored intelligence reports that had crossed his desk sooner than this. Of course there were no plans to activate because
the WHODONALD TRUMP had thrown away the procedure manual, disbanded the dedicated department created for pandemic response, and had sent the US scientists on the ground packing. His optimistic “cheerleader mode” would have only been of use if behind the scenes he’d been preparing for the worst. Instead, he believed his cheerleading. He thought he could stop the virus by a combination of PR and sheer force of will. The virus called his bluff and tens of thousands of Americans died.Outside the US, not really relevant. Everyone knows the WHO made multiple mistakes in how this unfolded. Guess what? They did with Ebola (really, really bad ones), and SARS, and every crisis before. Terrible mistakes, utter incompetence, from the benefit of perfect hindsight.
Turns out putting medical professionals in a highly politicized world body and subjecting them to incredible pressures as they make critical decisions with extremely limited information produces mistakes, regardless of how intelligent or dedicated they are. Oddly enough, adding more politicization isn’t a remedy.
Along the way, the WHO has also saved millions of lives. Which is what they will be focusing on now, outside of America, minus US funding but plus funding from many other nations.
Meanwhile, in the US, the focus is shifting to opening up the economy, and the JHU data says yesterday was the day with the most new cases in the country.