Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said Tuesday night that the coronavirus crisis is “not because of anything China did,” placing blame on President Donald Trump instead.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper brought up Murphy’s tweet from early February, when the senator expressed concern that the Trump administration was not prepared to manage a potential outbreak. (RELATED: FLASHBACK: Jan. 21: Fauci Says Coronavirus ‘Not A Major Threat’ To U.S.)
“We knew it was a matter of time before it arrived here and it was just shocking how cavalier the administration was,” Murphy said, repeating the false claim that the president called the virus a “hoax.”
“The reason that we’re in the crisis that we are today is not because of anything that China did,” Murphy said. “It’s not because of anything that the WHO did. It’s because of what this president did. He didn’t take this virus seriously.”
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Murphy’s comments came hours after the president announced he was suspending U.S. funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) over the organization’s ties to China, and their handling of the coronavirus pandemic. (RELATED: NYC Adds Nearly 4,000 People Who Never Tested Positive To Coronavirus Death Tolls)
“The WHO’s reliance on China’s disclosures likely caused a twenty-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that,” Trump said at a press briefing Tuesday. “The WHO has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there are many.”