President Trump has zeroed in on the World Health Organization (WHO) as a new target for blame as the coronavirus pandemic grips the United States.
The attacks come as Trump faces criticism for his own response to the crisis and fit a pattern in which the president has lashed out at other politicians and organizations to redirect blame.
Trump has skewered the WHO for disagreeing with his travel restrictions on China and suggested the organization was sluggish in warning the global community about the novel coronavirus, threatening to withhold U.S. funding for the body.
“They called it wrong,” Trump said at a Tuesday press briefing. “They could have called it months earlier. They would have known, and they should have known, and they probably did know, so we’ll be looking into that very carefully.”
Trump doubled down on the criticism Wednesday, saying the WHO “minimized the threat very strongly” and that his administration was reviewing funding to the organization.
Conservatives in particular have charged that the WHO has been overly trusting of China’s reporting and thus slow to prepare the international community for the novel coronavirus.
