Trump's CDC director calls WHO a 'great partner' even after president freezes their funding

President Donald Trump this week ordered a freeze on funding to the World Health Organization over its supposed deference to the Chinese government.

However, Trump-appointed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday that he still wants to work with the WHO despite the president cutting off its funding.

"You know, I'm just going to say the WHO has been a longstanding partner for CDC," he said, as reported by Politico. "We've worked together to fight health crises all around the world. We continue to do that... WHO has been a long-term and still is a great partner for us."

Other Trump officials have not hesitated in attacking WHO for purportedly not being prepared to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, for instance, went off on a scientifically illiterate rant in which she falsely claimed that the WHO should have been more prepared for COVID-19 because she thought it was the 19th strain of the virus.

In reality, the "19" at the end of COVID-19 denotes it as a strain of the virus that was discovered in 2019, rather than marking it as the 19th overall strain of the virus.