‘More Deaths’: W.H.O. Veteran Says Trump W.H.O. Plan Risks ‘Many More Deaths’ | MSNBC

A top veteran of the W.H.O., Prof. Lawrence Gostin, responds to breaking news that Pres. Trump will defund the W.H.O. during the coronavirus pandemic on MSNBC. “There’s no question about it, without a WHO that’s empowered, there’ll be many more deaths,” Gostin tells MSNBC’s Ari Melber, adding that Trump’s claims about the organization’s response are false. Gostin directs the WHO collaboration center at Georgetown University, and served as an expert on the WHO’s Pandemic Influence Preparedness Framework committee. Aired on 04/14/2020.
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“More Deaths”: W.H.O. VETERAN SAYS TRUMP W.H.O. PLAN Risks 'Many More Deaths' | MSNBC

93 comments

    1. @TJ Abston dictators do not promote states rights. They do not give tax cuts to almost every bracket, they do not work with minority leaders to help inner city communities, they do not fund hiv research. Get a clue

    1. @Democrat Skyscreamer “will you be screaming at the sky again when Trump gets reelected? LMAO”

      With the way your president has responded so badly to COVID, there is a significant chance you won’t even live to laugh at them.

    1. Phatt Al: It will definitely help the GOP in their constant fight to lower the numbers of people on Medicaid and Medicare, the elderly, disabled, and poor. Their favorite groups to get rid of since they don’t contribute to growing their Wall Street Portfolios. The slow response to this pandemic may have been deliberate by this administration. Ya think??? At this point in watching their callousness, and now the ush to get everyone back to work ASAP, before agreeing to provide free Antibody testing to anyone upon request, sadly I believe Anything is possible. I wasn’t this cynical and suspicious before COVID, but I sure am becoming so now.

    2. @Jane Peters It’s Ironic – Maybe we could make a film (a real one) – ‘Nobody does it worse’ – The ‘guy’ clearly has not a clue of the essence of science, nor humanity.

    3. All countries warned by W.H.O. – same day – same briefing. Trump called warning a “hoax”.
      U.S.A. = 37,000 dead
      COUNTRIES ACTED: China 4,632 dead. Australia = 68. Singapore =11. Taiwan = 6. HongKong = 4.
      **NUMBERS DON’T LIE**

    4. @Bud Fudlacker – YOU LIE! Dems never said anything close to that. Deceptive Trumputin boot licker.

    1. Rusty Shackleford If you think that then you don’t understand our government. We have three branches of government. Do you know what they are? Should I give you a 5th grade civics lesson?

    2. @Troubled Sole so according to your logic if Cuomo burns New York to the ground it’s Trump’s fault… how?

  1. So now Trump is trying to scapegoat the WHO, the media, and everyone else for his criminal incompetence, and his failure to protect this country from a pandemic that he was warned about multiple times.

    U.S. intelligence officials with the National Center for Medical Intelligence issued a report in late November warning that a virus was taking root in China. Analysts concluded it could be a “cataclysmic event,” and the report was shared with the White House, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency. There were multiple briefings about the report throughout December for policymakers, National Security Council, and the White House..

    On Dec. 31, China publicly confirmed that dozens of people in Wuhan were being treated for pneumonia-like symptoms. Three days later, on Jan. 3, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said he first learned of the spread of the virus in China at a White House briefing attended by CDC and Prevention director Robert Redfield.

    Days after the Jan. 3 briefing in the White House, U.S. intelligence warnings about the threat posed by the virus began appearing in Trump’s daily brief. Whether Trump read those briefings is anyone’s guess..

    On Jan. 18, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar first briefed Trump on the threat of the virus in a phone call. Trump made his first public comments about the virus on Jan. 22, saying he was not concerned about a pandemic and that “we have it totally under control.”

    “What President Obama left Trump, was a global health infrastructure that we had set up, informed by the lessons of the Ebola outbreak,” Ben Rhodes, Former Deputy National Security Adviser under Obama said, referring to the NSC pandemic directorate that was dismantled by the Trump in 2018.

    “One year later I was mystified when the White House dissolved the office, leaving the country less prepared for pandemics like COVID-19,” Beth Cameron, the first director of the unit, wrote in an op-ed. She said the directorate was set up to be the “smoke alarm” and get ahead of emergencies and sound a warning at the earliest sign of fire — “all with the goal of avoiding a six-alarm fire.”

    Trump has defended his record, arguing, “I’m a “businessperson.” I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly.”

    But experts argue that’s not how pandemic preparedness works, and that’s definitely not how a virus works.  “You build a fire department ahead of time,” Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security stated. “You don’t wait for a fire.”

    President Obama left Trump with a fire department, as well as smoke detectors, and Trump simply threw them away.

    Trump, being the stable genius that he is,  believed it was smarter to wait and put together a fire department, AFTER a five alarm fire starts.

    1. “Now Trump is trying to blame the ones responsible for this and that makes him incompetent”. When you read something online and your IQ is fighting in order not to dramatically drop to the person’s level.

    1. @Billy Mick God not going to have some worthless con man playing wartime president to do great battle with I’m sure he would of picked a more formidable opponent than a scaredy cat draft dodger.

  2. Public-health experts have stated that Trump’s early efforts to downplay the threat of the virus robbed the US of valuable time needed to prepare for what is now a pandemic — potentially costing thousands of lives…

    Trump spent “two months of completely ignoring every bit of scientific advice,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute stated in mid-March. “We’ve wasted two months. And this is not a disease where you’re allowed to waste two months.”

    Jha, who received his doctorate in medicine from Harvard Medical school, criticized Trump for telling Americans that everything was “under control” when it was very clear to anybody paying attention that it was not under control.”

    “I don’t use these words lightly, and it’s incredibly painful for me to say it,” he said, adding: “The cost of all of this is that tens of thousands of Americans are going to die unnecessarily.” He went on to say: “It was wholly preventable, and not just preventable in hindsight — it was preventable in foresight. Everybody said this is how it was going to play out if they didn’t act.”

    1. I watched a video of him cutting funding on The Guardian channel, everyone in the comments there was praising him, I honestly don’t understand, I feel like I’m in a nut house listening to the minds of lunatics and madmen when they talk. One actually said their comments were smarter then those on the MSNBC channels, despite being the same nonsensical rubbish that usually comes from them.

    2. David J. – Good comments as usual.

      I don’t know if this is the same doctor. But there was a doctor on Fox News being interviewed and he was just shaking his head “no” while the pretty blond interviewer was commenting.

      When he finally spoke he basically stated “the administration knew about this since December 31, 2019 and did nothing.” The interviewer thanked him and immediately ended the interview.

    3. Yes, but somebody had to put W.H.O. back into its place. Nobody would have said it like Trump said it straight. He didn’t go in rounds.

  3. Trump: “My authority is total, right up until the moment it’s time to take responsibility, and then my name’s Bennett, and I ain’t in it.”

    1. @IdyllicReveries “I ReAd oN StAtiStiCs, TiMeLiNe, aBd PsYcHoLoGy.” – Sorry, but your ultra vague pseudo intellectual statement just threw me right off. Maybe next time begin your reply with “This is what I disagree on and why” rather than asking people to simply read more..

    2. @IdyllicReveries So… you engaged in a discussion with me implying Im under-read, but have no interest in telling me what justifies that statement? Absolute madlad.

    3. @toasteh You need to fact check. WHO declared it an international public health emergency in January. On March 11th is when it had spread to so many countries that it was upgraded to a pandemic. WHO was reporting what information China was reporting to them. Yes it turned out to be wrong, China was underreporting the number of cases and severity. BTW Trump was praising China for how open and transparent they were being about the virus. He went on to thank them for how helpful they were being. Trump didn’t question China’s reporting at the time. He wasn’t interested in covid-19 until March. He boasts that he banned all flights from China early on to address the problem. He really only banned flights into 3 major airports in the country. All the other airports continued to allow flights from China. Over 40,000 people entered the country from China over the next two months. IMO Trump failed to take the outbreak seriously, and should have stopped golfing and hosting rallies for his own pleasure and started with stricter stay at home orders sooner. He should also stop telling lies and pushing unknown drugs he owns stocks in during press briefing.

    4. ​@Patricia Scheetz Separate studies have found that the worlds death toll would have shrunk by 95 per cent if China and the WHO had acted just 3 weeks early on the information THEY HAD, but their censorship of the information/warnings lead to the pandemic we have today. All this you even admit, but because you suffer from Trump Derangement Sydrome its just followed by “BUT MUH TRUMP MAN BAD, HOW CAN I RE-DIRECT MY ANGER TO TRUMP!?”…

      And of course Trump didnt criticize China until the information that showed that China had LIED ALL ALONG came out…everyone was initially under the perception that China was trying to solve this, and they werent. Do you understand how a time-line works and how people can change a stance when you are given new information?

      Also, Hydroxychloroquine isnt an ‘unknown drug’ Patricia. There are conflicting information and studies on what works and what does, but IF something MAY work then why is telling people WHO ARE DYING to try it, if its side-effects are nausea/vomiting/headaches etc, low health-risk effects in return bad? Feeling nausea Vs Potentially dying? You do the math Patricia.

      Jesus christ you anti-Trumpers are like rabid dogs frothing at the mouth every chance you get to attack Trump and literally ANYTHING HE DOES, DOESNT MATTER WHAT.

    1. @Lauri Rohr who will go after us ??? deluded leftists with dementia ridden leader Biden, hehehe…. some people are really silly.

    2. @Billy Joe Jim Bob He will be up there demanding ABSOLUTE POWER like some Evil Cartoon Character until they drag Him off to the Nuthouse where You would fit right in visiting Him with the rest of the red hats.

    3. @Dan Seven 😂😂😂😂😂😂 You idiots really are stupid. Love trolling you mindless freaks. And you keep responding. 😂😂😂😂

  4. Coming from a President who fired an entire Pandemic task force from service to help America make correct responses , I don’t find his attack of the WHO a surprise at all.

    1. George Layton hes done lost his mind…being bullied, concentrating on being a bully to contest other so called bullies in his head. God please take him out of the White House now! A man in his position can’t be in no position to be rational and wise.

    2. Ace1000ks1975 November trump plans on all of us being dead or laid up somewher with the stupid covid. Open ur eyes

  5. I don'”t get it why a single prepubescent old guy like Tr. can get away with this and the stupid flock following him like the pied piper.

    1. @Storm Dog Ask yourself. Would any of this conspiracy theory evidence stand up in court? Answer NO. None of it is evidence, it is all innuendo and slander. This is why they never come out and actually accuse anyone. They just place little seeds in your mind and let you come to the concussing they want you to. Maybe you should wake up. I’ve listened to the conspiracy theories, and seen NO evidence for their claims.

    2. @Jeff Gibson clearly you don’t grasp the definition nor the meaning in the context as presented.

  6. Destroys the Health Security Unit in 2018. Blames Obama Administration for his lack of preparedness during the fourth year of his term and dismisses the virus as comparable to the flu. Only shuts down flights from China carrying non citizens and residents after 400000 already entered US. Rejected numerous warnings. Who is to blame?

    1. At the very least, could you not agree that the US WHO funding (15%) is way to high in relation to others? China sits at around 2%. Why does the US have to pour so much into it and what we’re the things that the WHO did right?

  7. Why are people afraid to call a liar a liar. He wasn’t wrong like he was making a mistake. He is purposely lying to smear the WHO for the lies he told.

    1. Look at all the democrats defending big pharma. We have cures for alot of things. Its these people who keep them from us. Its you that keep it from us by protecting these orgs and big pharma. What do you stand for? Podesta art? Just think how you hurt our nation and the world supporting these things.

    2. @SqueezleMcCheezle I knew before.Corruption is rampant in Politics.That’s what some people don’t understand with Trump.He is not a politician and is disruptive.. Dems and the left are so brainwashed,they don’t understand,Trump draining the swamp is good thing.Politics has gotten out of control with the greed.From Nixon up to Obama Biden.They sold out America

  8. IF TRUMP WOULD ADMIT HIS MISTAKES AND SAY I’M SORRY FOR MY STUPIDITY HE COULD UNITE THIS COUNTRY AGAIN.. BUT NO…. ITS ALWAYS THE BLAME GAME!!! SHAMEFUL!!!

    1. Are you claiming the WHO DIDN’T cover for China saying it could’nt be transmitted human to human? Are you claiming they’re not bought by China? Why wont they allow Taiwan membership ? Why wont they even mention Taiwan, despite Taiwan having shown textbook handling of the virus whilst being nextdoor to China? The WHO spent more on business class and five star hotel stays for itself than it spent on Malaria, ebola and aids combined. Rotten to the core. Well done Trump.

    2. You are dishonest. You know dam well it would not unite the country, but it would only launch a feeding frenzy to impeach him again. Only this time democrats would be saying he already “confessed”.

  9. Here’s Trump on cutting the pandemic response budget in 2018:
     “I’m a businessman. I don’t like having 1000’s of people around when you don’t
    need them”.
    “Some of the people we’ve cut, they haven’t been used for many, many
    years and if we ever need them we can get them very quickly and rather
    then spending the money,”

    And now-
    “You said that you don’t take responsibility, but you did disband the
    White House pandemic office, and the officials that were working in that
    office left this administration abruptly. So what responsibility do you
    take to that?” Alcindor asked.

    Trump -“Well, I just think it’s a nasty question,” he said on Friday. “And when
    you say me — I didn’t do it…I don’t know anything about it.”

    “I don’t take responsibility at all,”

  10. Experts should be allowed to hold daily briefings of their own, report facts to the public and make recommendations to the national government and the states.

  11. Oh ja, forgot Shame on Chief Justice John Roberts, wo did not do his jobs during the impeachment trial.

  12. I remember someone very intelligent calling him a “loose cannon”. Well there’s your prove. Bottom line he’s a ‘mass murderer’

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