WHO Broken and Compromised. Lanhee Chen Talks to A&G

Please don't politicize this virus. If you want to have many more body bugs, then you do it. If you don't want many more body bugs, then you refrain from politicizing it. Oh, the guy in charge of the World Health Organization blasting all of us. Don't politicize this so there'll be more body bags. Though he has politicized at

all from the very beginning. His name is complicated. It's tedro sumthing or other something or other, so people are starting to call him t g H his initials and our our friend Lawn he Chan wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal which we read from yesterday, which he said the World Health Organization isn't just China centric it is broken and compromised, and goes through an explanation of that, and we thought, why not talk to Lon

he about it. Lan he Chen is the David and Diane Stephy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecture of the Public Policy Program at Stanford University, joins us. Now, Lan he how are you? Hey? Guys? Always good to do with you? Hey, that was a firm handed spanking you gave the wh o uh the other day and well done? Uh? What is it that bothers you most about the way they're doing? What they're doing? Well? Gosh,

you know, where do we start? I mean that that clip you guys played, I mean, he doesn't sound like the director of a public health agency. He sounds like a pod dictator. And you know, one shouldn't be surprised if you look at the background of where Dr Tedros came from and why it is that he seems so interested in in in placating China's view on this UM.

I think there's a couple of challenges. First of all, the who Is has been for many years a public health organization that countries around the world have looked to for guidance on critical issues, and they've done a lot of good work. I don't want to I don't want to let that go. They've done a lot of good work. The problem is that in the last ten years or so, the organization has basically been co opted to launder the

public health agenda of the Chinese government. And that's not a problem if you don't first of all, don't care or be if you're not in a state of pandemic as we are now and in the current crisis. What the World Health Organization has done is basically to simply accept without questioning or investigation, everything that the Chinese government has said about coronavirus. And now we actually no, because

the U. S. Intelligence community has reported this. The Chinese have repeatedly lied, obvious, skated, and hidden the truth about coronavirus. And so when you have the Public Health Organization of the world supposedly basically taking those statements and saying, yeah, they're true, uh, and you know, spreading those around the rest of the world, it's a problem. It's a problem for us, and it's a problem not just for US,

but for nations around the world. Well, of course, the IC on the cake is that the World Health Organization, like NATO and like the U n N of the United States, is the biggest financial contributors who are paying a whole bunch of money to have some guys spout nonsense straight out of the mouth of the communist Chinese. Well, right, so four million dollars a year is what we send

the World Health Organization. We are the world's largest supporter of the w h O. By the way, the world's second largest supporter of the w h O is the Gates Foundation. It's not even another government. I mean, it's not even close. And the Chinese by comparison, So we give four hundred, the Chinese give about forty four million in year. So how are they able to get control of the organization. The answer is quite simple. It's the same thing that they've done with a lot of other

international organizations. They've tried to make sure that the leadership of those organizations is sympathetic to their point of view. So this guy, ted Ros was a leader in Ethiopia at a time when China invested heavily and gave a lot of money to Ethiopia to develop infrastructure and all sorts of other projects. Ted Ro's has always been accused of being too close to China and then to put

icing on the cake. He puts in charge of the Coronavirus Task Force at the w h O, a guy who is completely bought into China's agenda, has not criticized China once during this entire coronavirus crisis, and instead, both he and Tedro's have criticized the United States for our policy response. Now, you can say what you want about Trump and what he's done, but there is no question in my mind that shutting down travel early to China

bought us some time. Now, we didn't use the time as well as we probably should have, but it bought us time. So to criticize the US for that striking a thing completely off base, Well, what does it deal with these guys in the w h O though, are did? Did they? And I hope that good journalists look into this. This Tedros du dude back in Ethiopia. Does he have a giant house that the Chinese bought or right around a bent Ley? Or does is he holding his daughters?

They are they holding his daughter's captive? I mean, it's one thing to not investigate as fully as they should early on whether or not there was human to human transmission to the virus. They did a horrible job on that and lied about it. But but to make these statements about we would just like to point out China's amazing transparency. I mean, they've gone above and beyond covering

for China. What the hell? Well, right, not so, so if you look at the timeline, which is something I go through in my piece, this is really important to know. So they basically said on January fourteenth, before they had investigated. For the WHO had investigated itself, they basically said, yeah, we agree with China, there's no human to human transmission. Then a couple of weeks later, the WHO and Dr

Tedro specifically applaud the Chinese Communist leadership for transparency. Then the WHO goes out and says, oh, no, don't worry. The transmission of this virus is quote minimal and slow, and in time and time again they fall down on the job. They don't even declare this thing a pandemic until March eleventh, when there are over a hundred thousand

cases around the world. So the WHO, it seems to me, has failed not just in terms of its basic public health responsibilities, but in terms of being just an organization that tries to do what is best for if the rest of its member states. The other thing I'll bring up is that very early on and back in December, Taiwan had informed the WHO of this strange pneumonia like virus and asked it to produce information and to distribute information about it. Those warnings, those warnings from Taiwan of

completely ignored. Now why did they go ignored because Beijing's view, China's view is that Taiwan is a renegade province and is not his own entity and therefore should not be in the w h O. So what does the WHO do Instead of investigating for the good of our public health, they accept the political argument of the Chinese government and ignore the Taiwania that that to me is unforgivable as well.

Lani Chen of the Hoover Institution and Stanford University on the line, Listen, I understand that the need to say overlook some of the sins of the Saudi regime are necessary if you're going to be allied with the Saudi regime. And you could argue, well, the w h O needs to be operating in China, and like Apple and a thousand other firms is realized. Look, if I call him on all our crap, I won't even be able to

do business there. But it seems to me that the who has gone so far beyond going along to get along? I'm with Jack. I mean, are they just specifically on the take? Are they communists? Are they just drawn to the great power of chairman he got? I don't get it, since they're they're the very reason for existence is to keep people from dying of diseases. Well, I do think, first of all, the leadership matters a lot. I think ted Ros is completely bought into what the Chinese government

is doing and saying. Now we can speculate on why that is. And I think one of the things we ought to demand is a transparency and accounting around ted ross compensation structure, what he's being paid. You know, I think you guys raised us on the show yesterday. Is the guy flying around in like a gulf stream everywhere he goes, you know? Or is he is he swept

in it in coach? You know? I mean that those will be good things to know, right And and though if we're gonna send four million dollars this organization every year. I do think it's fair for us to ask what

are we getting for our money? And and right now it just seems pretty suspicious that Dr ted Ros and his cronies are walking around not having said a single You cannot find in the record a single negative thing they have said about China's handling of coronavirus, the way in which the Chinese have have essentially obfuscated the truth, or uh, the way in which you know China has responded to this internally, you will you will not see

a single criticism of that. But I guarantee you you will find plenty of criticisms about the United States and about other countries that have followed the same approach that

we have. Not enough criticism out of the mainstream media of the w h O and Tedros in particular, in my mind, either the New York Times had the story a couple of weeks ago that you could have a reduction in the damage that was done by this by this dead zinique and economically uh late at the foot of China if they had let the world know what was going on earlier on. Well, you gotta put that at the feet of Tedros himself. Don't you. Oh, you

absolutely have to. He's the leader of the organization. He's the one responsible for not disseminating more information, sounding the alarm earlier, trying to do a better job of taking seriously that this was going to be a big public health challenge. And I think the who has to bear

some fundamental responsibility to that. Look about the mainstream media, let me just say this, I think the reason why they they see this as Trump trying to draw a distraction away from whatever it is, but they then refused to look seriously and carefully at this organization. And I bet you if they took if they were willing to take a serious look instead of just dismissing it as some kind of stunt, they would see exactly what I saw,

which is absolutely appalling. It is upon This guy is appalling, and you heard it in his response, the way that he you know, this stupid blood on their hands argument. There's another part of that clip you guys ought to find well, he says that the US needs to behave

He uses the worst page. This guy, this guy is, this guy is beyond the pale, and and the first thing we need to do is we need to remove this guy, and then we can talk about organizational reform, because while this guy is there, there is no way the World Health Organization becomes a better organization. Just not gonna happen. Oh though those are fighting words, dude, that stolen words out of my mouth. You know. The thing with the media, and we've observed this for a long time, Lonnie,

is that they're so proud of not beings xenophobic. They've crossed some sort of line. There's xenophiles, there's zeno pheliax. They believe if it is international, if it is foreign, it's by definition superior to the ugly, ugly United States. And I think, and tell me if I'm wrong. My metaphor is like a Western movie maybe, where you know you've got the big tough gunfighter and he doesn't have

to worry about anything. He just kind of lets things go because he's the biggest, toughest nobody and everybody knows it until the other the new big tough gunfighter comes to town. And I think we have just been kind of flabby and not paying attention to international institutions because we ran them. But now China is big enough and tough enough. They've come to town. They're trying to utilize these organizations to their own ends. You know, only have

like twenty seconds. But if you want to comment, oh, that's right. And and the problem is we we're still spending the most amount of money in the world on these organizations, so we need to demand some accountability. I have no problem with multilateral action. There's sometimes when you need organizations like this, But if you're gonna send hundreds of millions dollars a year to an organization like this, you better be sure that we're spending it for good

and not for evil. And right now, this tedros guy in the w h show are rotten to the core. Lan j h N, he thanks a million, great time. Yeah, good stuff, keep preaching, my brother. And ln h N is not the kind of guy that you know, calls someone appalling. I mean that's common on cable news and and talk radio. He's not the kind of guy that says that sort of stuff unless it's true, and in this case it is very true. For all your food. He's out there, I'm unwrapping a McDonald's steak, egg and

cheese bagel. Look at this steak and the juice running down the sign. Get a little bit on a wrapper here, and then the fluffy egg and real cheese flowed over the all right, looking just so good. M m Griled onions and a butt of bagel too. Thumbs off of mcdonald' steak gagg and cheese bagel for Breakfast, Love It mbotu, I participate in McDonald's