Keir Simmons joined Andrea Mitchell on her Tuesday MSNBC show to report on the latest developments surrounding the World Health Organization, President Trump, and China. During which, he argued that the to the rest of the world it appears that the United States is "just criticizing," while China is "making proposals" to the consternation of U.S. allies.
Simmons cited as proof, President Trump's letter to the WHO threatening to permanently cut off funding while Xi Jinping delivered a speech to WHO's teleconference in which he pledged to donate $2 billion to anti-coronavirus efforts, "Exactly what you have is this kind of split screen between the way that America is behaving and the way China is behaving and China is, frankly, quite openly attempting to steal the limelight, trying to steal the stage."
He was forced to acknowledge that nobody knows exactly is in the $2 billion package, not an insignificant detail for a country that has provided one country after another with faulty medical equipment throughout the crisis, although Simmons didn't mention that.
Another supposed Chinese diplomatic victory, according to Simmons, was the unanimous adoption of resolution that calls for, "an impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation of the history of the coronavirus and what happened in the early days. But it's much weaker than America and Australia was calling for."
He also engaged in some whataboutism, "The President also questioned the leading World Health Organization's praise for China's transparency. Of course, President Trump himself praised China's transparency earlier this year."
Simmons said this was all unfortunate, because questions like the status of Taiwan are important, but that others are "going to notice while President Trump could have given an address to the assembly, he didn't." In the real world--as opposed to MSNBC's imagination -- countries don't change their foreign policy because Xi gave a speech to a WHO teleconference and Trump did not.
Summing it all up, Simmons declared, "the issue really is, Andrea, what you see, rightly or wrongly, substantially or not, you see China making proposals, making offers to see America just criticizing. I think optics of that are worrying many, many allies of America around the world."
Maybe the optics are that way because that's the message MSNBC wants to spin. For instance, when Russia sends the U.S. ventilators, MSNBC will claim that is Putin embarrassing Trump on the world stage. When the U.S. sends Russia and other countries ventilators, MSNBC won't even cover the story.
Here is a transcript for the May 19 show:
MSNBC
Andrea Mitchell Reports
5/19/2020
12:48 PM ET
KEIR SIMMONS: Exactly what you have is this kind of split screen between the way that America is behaving and the way China is behaving and China is, frankly, quite openly attempting to steal the limelight, trying to steal the stage. And we don't know the details of the $2 billion, we don’t know the details. It’s not money for the World Health Organization, it is money, they say to fight the coronavirus. So it doesn't replace the American hundreds of millions of dollars that's being threatened to be withdrawn but the optics are clear.
Meanwhile, the assembly, Andrea has just voted on a resolution that does call for an impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation of the history of the coronavirus and what happened in the early days. But it's much weaker than America and Australia was calling for. So it doesn't necessarily really kind of focus on China the way that President Trump wanted. Meanwhile, this is his letter to the leader of the World Health Organization threatening to remove America, threatening to permanently withdraw the money and Andrea, there are good points in here. It does raise the question of Taiwan and why Taiwan wasn't given observer status, raising the point Taiwan would have been able to raise the alarm with coronavirus. And, of course, China doesn't want that, because Taiwan it sees as part of One China.
But there are other fact checks that don't stand up. So the president talking about the report in the Lancet Medical Journal in December 2019. In fact the Lancet said today that wasn't December 2019, that was January 2020. Very different, looking back at December. Very, very different. The president also questioned the leading World Health Organization's praise for China's transparency. Of course, President Trump himself praised China's transparency earlier this year. People will pick holes in this letter. They're going to notice while President Trump could have given an address to the assembly, he didn't. He could have made all of these points. Brought all of this criticism home to a world audience and the issue really is, Andrea, what you see, rightly or wrongly, substantially or not, you see China making proposals, making offers to see America just criticizing. I think optics of that are worrying many, many allies of America around the world.
