by Melvin A. Goodman 
Donald Trump’s war on truth is having a corrosive effect on our democracy. The constant charges of “fake news” have created cynicism and confusion among the American people, and the wholesale lying from the Oval Office have undermined our faith and trust in our leadership.
The Fact Checker from the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler, awarded Trump with Three Pinocchios on April 17 for his current campaign against the World Health Organization (WHO). He accused the WHO with “covering up the spread of the coronavirus” and failing to “share information in a timely and transparent fashion.” Trump charged that the WHO was a “tool of China” and introduced the vile conspiracy theory that the WHO deliberately concealed the danger of the virus: “There’s something going on” at the WHO “that’s very bad, and I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on.” The American people have a right to expect that the president of the United States will not be the originator of a damnable conspiracy theory.
Known Facts
Kessler documented the facts that exposed the unconscionable nature of Trump’s lies:
- As early as January 9, 2020 a WHO statement noted that “Chinese authorities have made a preliminary determination of a case of novel coronavirus in Wuhan, which happened to be several days before the Central Intelligence Agency informed the president in the President’s Daily Brief. The following day, the WHO released health-worker guidance that recommended “contact precautions when caring for patients” based on the experience of such respiratory viruses as SARS and MERS.
- On January 14, the WHO even alerted the international community to the possibility of “limited human-to-human transmission,” despite not having a “clear clinical picture.” A day earlier, Thailand announced its first imported case of the coronavirus involving an individual who lived in Wuhan and had arrived from China on January 8, 2020.
- Finally, on January 20, the WHO emphasized the fact that there was “at least some human-to-human transmission,” noting the infections among health care workers. The following day, both the United States and South Korea identified their first cases of the virus.
Trump Shifts Blame
Thus, the Trump administration knew everything the WHO knew on a near-real time basis. Nevertheless, the president chose to add the WHO to a smear campaign that has targeted his Democratic opponents, minorities, immigrants, and the mainstream media. He chose to blame the WHO for his own pathetic response to the coronavirus. Interestingly, it took the Trump administration nearly two years to nominate the U.S. representative to the WHO’s executive board, and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) still hasn’t bothered to present the nominee to the Senate for confirmation.
At the same time, more than a dozen U.S. researchers, physicians and public health experts, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were working full-time at the WHO’s Geneva headquarters and regularly transmitted real-time information to the White House about the discovery and spread of the coronavirus. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan proclaimed: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts.”
The opinions expressed by Mel are wholly his own and do not imply in any way Florida Veterans For Common Sense, Inc. endorsement or agreement.