House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shamed President Trump for displaying “weak” leadership following a defense of his administration’s response to the coronavirus that shifted blame for the outbreak to the World Health Organization.
“The truth is that in January, Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and disaster,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to colleagues. “The truth is a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility. A weak person blames others.”
Trump on Tuesday announced he was placing a halt on funding to the WHO and claimed the international health organization had not scrutinized information it was fed by China about the virus adequately during the early days of the pandemic.
The virus is believed to have originated in Wuhan late last year.
“Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death,” Trump said.
The United States is the largest underwriter of the organization. Currently, the U.S. assessed contribution to the WHO is 22% of the total members’ assessed contributions.
International medical experts slammed Trump’s decision, warning it could have dangerous consequences during an international health crisis.
The halt in funding defies the pandemic preparedness plan Trump’s administration drafted in 2017, according to Politico.
Reporters have pressed Trump about what his administration did with the time it bought after the president banned travel to the U.S. from China by foreign nationals in late January. The administration did not declare a national emergency until mid-March.
Pelosi, meanwhile, was out in San Francisco’s Chinatown in late February, encouraging people to go out in public and spend money at local businesses.
But the Democrat said Trump in recent days had displayed an unfortunate willingness to be dishonest during a time of national crisis.
“If we are not working from the truth … economic hardship and suffering will be extended unnecessarily and our children will not be safe, happy, and learning,” she said. “Our future will be healthy and prosperous if we no longer tolerate lies and deceit. We must recognize the truth, we must speak the truth, we must insist on the truth, and we must and will act upon it.”
There have been more than 600,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. as of Wednesday, and more than 25,000 people have died.
Trump said he was eager to reopen the American economy by lifting social distancing restrictions and was currently working with state governors to do so.
