Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney is firmly in President Trump’s camp when it comes to defunding the World Health Organization.
Cheney, appearing Wednesday on KFBC radio, said the president was right to cut-off funding to the organization for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“As long as the director of the WHO is someone who is doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party, they are costing lives, not saving lives,” Cheney said.
President Trump announced on Tuesday the U.S.would no longer financially support the organization until an investigation was conducted into the spread of the coronavirus after it surfaced in China.
“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.
Calling the World Health Organization a “mouthpiece” for China, Cheney said the group defended China when the country’s leaders were lying about the transmission of the virus and blocking access to international groups investigating the disease.
She said the U.S. and other nations need to tell the Chinese government that “they cannot be a part of the civilized community of nations if they are going to continue to allow the practices that they have in wet markets.”
“They have reopened the wet markets in Wuhan where they have wild animals and completely disgusting practices that we know has spread viruses from animals to humans in the past,” she said.
Cheney said she thought the World Health Organization should have a “crucial” role to play in the world but the U.S. shouldn’t support it until changes are made.
