MSNBC's Brian Williams and Richard Engel took it upon themselves on Wednesday to defend the honor of the World Health Organization after President Trump's announcement on Tuesday that the U.S. would suspend payments to the organization, declaring it self-evident that the only reason Trump would do such a thing is because he's looking to distract and scapegoat others.
With fellow host Katy Tur nodding in agreement, Williams began by confidently telling Engel, "For all those watching to whom this is not obvious, let's be truthful. The president is looking to distract and assign blame here."
Engel agreed and then launched into a long anti-Trump and pro-W.H.O. diatribe. He even tried to pass off a former W.H.O. official as evidence of blame shifting, "Well, I just spoke with a former W.H.O. official and that is exactly what he told me. He said that the president is trying to find a scapegoat. That he is blaming the W.H.O. Because now the virus has arrived in the United States and there are many, many critics domestically who say that President Trump acted too quickly and acting quickly again to end the lockdown or to push for the lockdowns to end. And he's looking for someone else to blame."
After hyping British medical editor Richard Horton calling the decision a crime against humanity, Engel tried to defend the WHO's record, "But if we can go back to January when they were first inklings this was coming, late December, early January where this seemed to be localized in Wuhan, the Chinese government parentally had a pretty good idea according to reporting that is out today by the Associated Press that this new virus was serious. It was spreading from human to human and had the potential of becoming a pandemic."
It was during those six days that WHO sent out it's infamous tweet there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission despite warnings from Taiwan in December and one W.H.O. official saying she suspected it from the beginning.
Engel then mocked the idea that the WHO, whose current director was backed by China and has a history of covering things up, might be in China's back pocket, "Trump is saying, 'Ah, that is the issue. The World Health Organization should have known. They should have put pressure on China and they should have let us know earlier because of this six day gap and, therefore, the pandemic is the World Health Organization's fault, they are China lackeys and therefore, we should stop giving them any money.'"
Engel concluded his lengthy proclamation by asserting, "there are many, many holes in this argument that President Trump is building."
Here is a transcript for the April 15 show:
MSNBC
MSNBC Live with Katy Tur
2:22 PM ET
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Richard, for all those watching to whom this is not obvious, let's be truthful. The president is looking to distract and assign blame here.
RICHARD ENGEL: Well, I just spoke with a former W.H.O. official and that is exactly what he told me. He said that the president is trying to find a scapegoat. That he is blaming the W.H.O. Because now the virus has arrived in the United States and there are many, many critics domestically who say that President Trump acted too quickly and acting quickly again to end the lockdown or to push for the lockdowns to end. And he's looking for someone
else to blame. Ah, it's China. It's the W.H.O. It was initially the Democrats who were hyping it and there were commentators that said it was a big hoax. W.H.O. official -- former W.H.O. official I spoke to a short while ago said this is nothing more than scapegoating for domestic consumption and by the way, he's not alone. There has been universal criticism. The editor of The Lancet, which is a prestigious medical journal here in the U.K, called it a crime against humanity that in the midst of a pandemic the President of the United States would promise to pull funding from the very organization that is supposed to be the global health watchdog.And what this is all about, this all goes back, Brian, to the very early days and December may seem like a long time ago and, frankly, it does. This is the weirdest situation, Brian, we've done a lot of stories together, I mean, I'm in my house and talking to each other and seeing each other's books and background. It is very strange. But if we can go back to January when they were first inklings this was coming, late December, early January where this seemed to be localized in Wuhan, the Chinese government parentally had a pretty good idea according to reporting that is out today by the Associated Press that this new virus was serious. It was spreading from human to human and had the potential of becoming a pandemic.
But for six days China didn't pass that information on to the rest of the world and now President Trump is saying, “Ah, that is the issue. The World Health Organization should have known. They should have put pressure on China and they should have let us know earlier because of this six day gap and, therefore, the pandemic is the World Health Organization's fault, they are China lackeys and therefore, we should stop giving them any money. But as you said, at the time, the president was still praising both China and the W.H.O. By the way, there's been subsequent reporting that even throughout this period the W.H.O. Was warning about the dangers of this pandemic. There are many, many holes in this argument that President Trump is building.
