WHO Goes There

And you thought Trumps' press briefing meltdown on Monday was as low and pathetic as he could go.

(Well, okay, no, at this point you're probably much too experienced in All Things Trump and didn't think that.  But still, to go lower and so soon is a nifty trick even by his standards.  But then, perhaps that's the thing about meltdowns.  When you finally break through, it overflows exponentially.  After all, yesterday is when he raved about one of his favorite movies Mutiny on the Bounty in a tweet and explained how exciting and exhilarating a good old-fashioned mutiny was -- I guess, maybe he's going to start selling "Mutineers Are Great Again" tricorn hats -- and praised the brutal, despotic Captain Bligh who claimed total authority and flogged his men.  And this didn't even make the list of "What to Write an Article About" today.)

And so it turns out that Trump is planning to stop U.S. funding to the World Health Organization while a review is conducted into how the organization handled the breakout of the COVID-19 virus.

What would be particularly cool, though, if we're going to operate on this standard is if the U.S. House of Representatives stopped funding the Trump administration while a review is conducted into how it handled the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.  Let's review --

The Trump administration ignored the Obama Transition Team, which specifically advised them on pandemics.

Trump closed the Pandemic Response Unit in 2018.

Trump didn't renew $8.5 BILLION cut from CDC budget for infectious diseases.

Trump fired Dr. Linda Quick, the CDC expert on infectious diseases based in China in July, 2019.

The administration learned of the outbreak in November and said it could be a "cataclysmic event."

Trump was informed in January, but did nothing. His economic adviser said there could be up to 2 million American deaths.

Throughout February, Trump kept saying COVID-19 was pretty much just like the flu.

On February 26, Trump said there were just 2-3 cases of infection, and that it would go down to zero soon like a "miracle."

In mid-April, Trump has still not enacted any national testing and is still yet to enable the Defense Production Act.

And despite later saying he has full authority to direct everything about the handling of the pandemic crisis, has said that "I take no responsibility at all."  And that he's just a "backup."  And that states are responsible for getting their own protective equipment.

But yes, sure, let's withhold $500 million in funding for the World Health Organization during a pandemic and investigate them.  The meter used to register the level of sarcasm doesn't reach that high.

In the end, cutting funding to WHO pending an "investigation" is just par for the course with him -- he's cut almost every health organization and funding since taking office (not to mention most-anything science related, like being the only country in the world to drop out of the Paris Accord for Climate Change), this was merely the next natural stop for him. It is no shock that the pandemic is worse in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.

Okay, though, in fairness, it's likely that the main reason Trump is withholding funds from the WHO is because he's going for the pandemic equivalent of a Perfect Game.

The fans are on their feet (social distanced, of course), watching in rapt excitement to see if he can pull it off. No one in recorded history has had a Pandemic Perfect Game but Trump so far has come closest. If he can fire Dr. Fauci, he'll be one step closer...

The Award Ceremony will be held in Hell.