GOP Sen. Alexander Criticizes Trump for Cutting US Ties With the WHO ‘In the Middle of’ Crisis

Senator Lamar Alexander (R- TN), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, criticized President Donald Trump over his decision Friday to cut U.S. ties with the World Health Organization.

Trump announced earlier, “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent, global public health needs… The world needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency.”

A number of Republicans have been publicly supportive of the president on taking this step. Today Alexander put out a statement criticizing this particular move and saying, “I disagree with the president’s decision.”

“Certainly there needs to be a good hard, look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it,” Alexander said in the statement. “Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need. And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.”

.@SenAlexander, the GOP chairman of the health committee, opposes Trump on WHO. “Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of [US] as well as others in the world need.” pic.twitter.com/a5NKpvbZ55

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 29, 2020