[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] thank you for your participation on today's call. announcer: the pandemic as having an impact on the congressional schedule. house majority steny hoyer announced that they will not be back until monday, may 4. the senate majority leader has announced the same. that is two weeks after the chamber was originally scheduled to return. furthermore, members have been -- about sufficient notice returning to capitol hill if legislation was to be considered before may 4. watch live coverage of the house on c-span. the senate on c-span2. announcer: new jersey governor phil murphy will provide an update on coronavirus response in his estate. we will take you there -- his

estate. we will take you there with live coverage as he explains the plan this afternoon, at the white house briefing at 5:00 p.m. eastern. ♪ announcer: "washington journal" primetime, a special evening addition of "washington journal" on the response to the pandemic. an guests include peter lee, expert on animal rights laws. he will talk about chinese markets into the suspected role in this part of the coronavirus. and robin kelly on the impact of the virus on her district. join the conversation tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. ♪ announcer: we take you live now to new jersey, where governor phil murphy is briefing reporters.

host: with the heritage foundation. here with us next to talk about tosident trump's decision withhold funding from the world health organization, fred

schaefer. thanks for being here. can you hear me ok? guest: i can. surprised by president trump's announcement? >> i was surprised about the timing. consideration of cutting funding to the world health organization. decision to cut funding right now in the midst of the covid-19 outbreak in so many countries around the world, it did take me by surprise. it does not mean the president does not have legitimate criticism of the world health organization, particularly its chineseess to take claims at face value, which cost enormous damage economically around the world and enormous in many countries around the world.

decision to cut funding at this moment when so many countries rely on the world health organization, that did take me by surprise. was about shifting china policy. do you think the decision was largely about china and not about the health organization? >> the world health organization, like many international organizations, had a large in -- political component. the organization discovered that governed by member states. it relies on them to provide funding for it. because not -- because it does not have real authority to gather information dependably, it relies -- on that information. many around the world are fairly transparent and willing to work with the organization and that

is not much of a problem. china, whichy like has a long history of trying to conceal and deny wrongdoing or missteps domestically or in the image that it presents to the world, this can lead to enormous complications. what happened here, clearly, was that china tried to deny what was going on domestically and to down play the threat to the international community of the covid-19 outbreak. and the world health organization unfortunately had to rely on chinese information there, where the world health organization went wrong is that it took chinese statements and information at face value when there was evidence both historically and concurrently that they should not do so. for instance, historically china, in the sars outbreak, was unwilling to be transparent during that outbreak and denied and obfuscate for months in providing information to the world health organization.

that led to the spread of that disease and hundreds of deaths. so the world health organization knew in the past that china wasn't willing to be transparent and cooperative. but it took chinese statements at face value this time. moreover, there was information provided by taiwan that this disease was a potential pandemic and that there was evidence of human to human transmission, even while china was denying that to the world health organization. instead of taking that information from taiwan and using it to perhaps question what it was hearing from china, the world health organization just parroted chinese statements saying that there was no evidence of human to human transmission and we're all paying the price for that. host: some perspective on funding for the world health organization. this from the world economic forum. united states of america, and this is a total -- this is from 2018 budget, roughly $400 million a year funded by the united states.

the largest funder. the second largest funder at over $200 million is the bill and melinda gates foundation. the u.k., germany -- china's contribution under $100 million annually. brett schaefer, what do you think the proper role of the world health organization during a pandemic, this pandemic in particular, should be? guest: well, the world health organization is supposed to be our early warning system for these sorts of things. it's supposed to track potential pandemics. it's supposed to launch and send teams of experts into the countries to take a look at the situation directly, to assess

the threat that the disease poses to the international community. and then work with other member states to arrest and control that threat if necessary. in this case, the world health organization wasn't even able to send an expert team into china until mid february because the chinese government wouldn't let them. instead of calling the chinese government to account for that lack of cooperation, lack of transparency, they instead, like i said, praised china for its transparency, they praised china for taking unprecedented steps in controlling this outbreak, all of which we know now to be untrue and unwarranted. host: the headline in financial times, trump condemned for w.h.o. fund freeze as coronavirus rages. the president saying, quote, american taxpayers provide

between $400 million and $500 million per year to the w.h.o. in contrast to china which gives less than $40 million a year. host: do you think the trump administration, the president is in a position to get support, to pressure the w.h.o. for more transparency? particularly on the issues you've pointed out about lack of

information from taiwan. guest: sure. i think that -- if you take back or go back a couple of days rather. there was increasing outrage on the part of not just developed countries like the united kingdom or other european countries, but developing countries in africa and other places in reaction to china's lack of cooperation, lack of transparency, and its role in facilitating the spread of covid-19. and that was building.