Obama's former UN ambassador blasts Trump's 'obscene' decision to cut WHO funding: 'Sheer madness'

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Samantha Power, the former ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama, attacked President Trump's decision to cut funding to the World Health Organization, arguing that it was hypocritical and an attempt to deflect from the administration's failures during the coronavirus pandemic.

"If I had to sum it up, I would say sheer madness," Power told CNN's "New Day" on Wednesday. "It’s obscene. It’s strictly political, really — an attempt to divert from what we all know has been a gross mismanagement of the prevention phase of this in the United States, and the response phase. And it’s tragic because the World Health Organization now is moving into a phase where it is going to try to help avert a catastrophe in the developing world."

She added that while Trump leveled some valid criticism at WHO, he was guilty of doing the same. "The problem is, his very criticisms are ones that you could levy just as easily at him — overreliance on China, flattery of China, sucking up to China to put it in an undiplomatic way." Power warned that the U.S. was retreating from international organizations and leaving a space for China to fill.

TRUMP ANNOUNCES US WILL HALT FUNDING TO WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION OVER CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE

Trump, she said, also downplayed the crisis "until it was too late." CNN's Alisyn Camerota knocked Trump for "believing China's narrative on this ... thinking that they were somehow being transparent."

President Trump said Tuesday that he was cutting off U.S. payments to the World Health Organization during the coronavirus pandemic, accusing the organization of failing to do enough to stop the virus from spreading when it first surfaced in China.

Trump, who had telegraphed his intentions last week, claimed the outbreak could have been contained at its source and that lives could have been saved had the U.N. health agency done a better job investigating the early reports coming out of China.

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“The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable,” Trump said at a briefing. He said the U.S. would be reviewing the WHO’s actions to stop the virus before making any decision on resuming aid.

The United States contributed nearly $900 million to the WHO’s budget for 2018-19, according to information on the agency’s website. That represents one-fifth of its total $4.4 billion budget for those years. The U.S. gave nearly three-fourths of the funds in “specified voluntary contributions” and the rest in “assessed” funding as part of Washington’s commitment to U.N. institutions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.