PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP on Tuesday said the World Health Organization has made mistakes amid the coronavirus pandemic and he plans to place a "very powerful hold" on funding the group.

"They actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it," Trump said at the White House coronavirus task force briefing. "And they were wrong. They've been wrong about a lot of things. They had a lot of information early … They seem to be very China-centric. We have to look into that, so we're going to look into it."

Trump said that WHO receives "vast amounts of money from the United States," adding it pays for the largest portion of the organization's funds. He said the organization "called it wrong."

"They missed the call," Trump said. "They could've called it months earlier. They would've known. They should've known, and they probably did know. So we'll be looking into that very carefully."

The president announced that he plans to put a pause on the funding to WHO.

"We're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO," Trump said. "We're going to put a very powerful hold on it, and we're going to see."

Trump later walked his statement back, saying he would "look at it."

The president also said he has not seen warning memos related to the coronavirus from Peter Navarro, the president's trade adviser. The New York Times reported that Navarro raised the alarm to the White House that Americans could be defenseless to the outbreak in late January.

When asked about what he would have done differently if he had seen the memos at the time, Trump cited his travel restrictions on China as a sign he was taking the virus seriously.

"Ultimately I did what the memo – more-or-less – what the memo said just about the time the memo came out," Trump said.

Story Credit US News