Sen. Roy Blunt: US needs the WHO to work properly, because 'we can't be that agency all by ourselves'
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Senate Intelligence Committee member Roy Blunt, R-Mo., told "Bill Hemmer Reports" Tuesday that the World Health Organization work effectively in the future after numerous reports have detailed its deference to China's narrative about the coronavirus pandemic.
"The World Health Organization clearly has problems here," Blunt told host Bill Hemmer. "Part of it is these authoritarian governments just don't tell the truth, whether it's China or Russia or Iran or other authoritarian governments.
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"At the same time, we need an organization like the World Health Organization to work. I think this is the time where we decide [if] this is the world organization we are going to be a part of. What is the replacement?"
Blunt said that the ongoing pandemic shows that America cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world on matters of public health.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"We have to have some world health agency that we are part of, because we can't be that agency all by ourselves," he said.
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"But we have some obligation to protect ourselves from those things that happen in other places."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Blunt also discussed the relationship between America and China and whether President Trump's adversarial stance toward the Beijing government on trade led to China "covering up" the pandemic and hoarding personal protective equipment and other crucial materials.
"I think the president has generally been very tough in his relationship with China; very tough in his view that too many of our jobs have gone there and that we've become too dependent on them in too many ways," he said.