A tweet that President Donald Trump posted in January praising China’s response to the coronavirus outbreak has already come back to haunt him, after he again attempted to shift blame for his own administration’s failures in addressing the pandemic.
Trump on Tuesday announced the US would suspend funding to the World Health Organisation, accusing the body of being “very China-centric” and of “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of coronavirus” by taking the word of officials in China, where the virus is believed to have originated.
Critics of Trump immediately hammered the president for this Jan. 24 tweet, in which he hailed China for “working very hard to contain the Coronavirus.”
“The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency,” Trump wrote, adding: “It will all work out well.”
Worldwide, the contagion has now sickened more than 2 million people and killed upwards of 126,000. In the US, some 26,000 people have died from Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
CNN’s John King noted Trump’s hypocrisy on Tuesday’s broadcast of “Outfront.” He pointed out that the WHO’s response was “flat-footed” and “did overly trust China,” but urged host Erin Burnett to “look at the president’s own words.”
“He said we were working with the World Health Organisation back in the early days and things were fantastic,” King noted, adding: “He said the World Health Organisation is responsible for deaths around the world because it cozied up to China. He did the same thing.”
Check out the segment here:
And the response to Trump’s old tweet here: