ABC’s Meghan McCain on Wednesday said she agreed with President Trump’s criticism of the World Health Organization (WHO), with the “The View” co-host arguing it has been “spewing Chinese propaganda for a very long time.”
“It’s hard for me to find something I agree with President Trump in right now, but I actually do agree with him on the criticism of the World Health Organization,” McCain, usually a staunch Trump critic, said.
“They seem to have been spewing Chinese propaganda for a very long time. Back in January, they said there was no evidence that human-to-human contact would spread COVID,” she said.
“They praised China’s transparency up until March. They criticized the travel ban that President Trump put on China, which is one of the moves I actually think ended up helping America,” she added.
Co-host Sunny Hostin took exception to McCain’s commentary, saying U.S. intelligence knew of the contagion in Wuhan, China, “as early as November.”
“We know that this president oftentimes doesn’t read his intelligence briefings, his daily briefings, and we also know he doesn’t trust U.S. intelligence, and he doesn’t trust his U.S. intelligence experts, but America knew,” Hostin retorted. “Intelligence officials knew that there was a contagion out of Wuhan as early as November, so to place the blame on the World Health Organization, I think is really ludicrous in a sense because it was up to the United States to protect the United States.”
The perspective comes after Trump announced he is considering pulling U.S. funding, which exceeds $400 million per year, to WHO.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday at the White House coronavirus task force briefing that WHO called “every shot wrong” on the novel coronavirus, which eventually became a pandemic.
“They missed the call. They could have called it months earlier. They would have known, and they should have known, and they probably did know,” Trump said Tuesday evening.
“We’re going to be looking into that very carefully, and we’re going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO,” he continued. “We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it, and we’re going to see. It’s a great thing if it works, but when they call every shot wrong, that’s not good.”
WHO responded on Wednesday by cautioning Trump on cutting off funding.
“We are still in the acute phase of a pandemic so now is not the time to cut back on funding,” said Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, in a virtual briefing.