Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to rip the World Health Organization, blaming its “corrupt” leadership pushing the United States away from the group.
“It’s become corrupt,” Pompeo told a Danish radio station during his trip to Copenhagen. “An epidemic broke out, killing hundreds of thousands of people all across the world. Trillions of dollars lost in economic wealth. All as a direct result of the Chinese Communist Party covering up and doing it with a complicit World Health Organization.”
“That’s not an organization that the United States wants to spend roughly half a billion dollars a year supporting,” Pompeo said.“We want to support institutions that are functional and work, and we’ll make sure that we do our part to make sure that each of those institutions does just that.”
On Tuesday in London, Pompeo told British lawmakers that Chinese officials "bought" the silence of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“We strongly reject any ad hominem attacks and unfounded allegations,” a spokesperson for the WHO said on Tuesday in a statement. “WHO urges countries to remain focused on tackling the pandemic that is causing tragic loss of life and suffering.”
Tedros received scorn for applauding China's "transparency" during the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, despite the disappointment agency officials expressed about Beijing's unwillingness to talk about the origins of the virus.
“When push came to shove, when it really mattered most, when there was a pandemic in China, Dr. Tedros, who was ... bought by the Chinese government, I can’t say more, but I can tell, I’m saying this on a firm intelligence foundation, a deal was made,” Pompeo told China hawks at the Henry Jackson Society on Tuesday, according to the Telegraph. “There was a deal-making election, and when push came to shove, you get dead Britons because of the deal that was made.”