GOP Sen. Johnson leads effort to limit Biden's ability to make deals with the WHO

Johnson cited the WHO's ties with Beijing as a factor in motivating the bill and lamented an alleged coverup between China and the WHO as to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Published: March 8, 2023 6:37pm

Updated: March 8, 2023 7:12pm

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is leading a legislative effort to limit President Joe Biden's ability to unilaterally negotiate agreements with the World Health Organization and he anticipates bipartisan support.

"So my bill is pretty simple," he said on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show. "It just says any agreement that the Biden administration enters into with the World Health Organization will be deemed a treaty, and will need to come before the Senate to be ratified by two-thirds of the body."

He added that the majority of Republicans in the upper chamber were already on board.

"I've already got all but three Republican senators cosponsoring it," he said. "The other three, I just haven't had time to talk to them. I've got a feeling I have all of them."

"I'm telling the Democrats, 'This really ought to pass by 100 to zero.' Congress, the Senate has to reclaim its constitutional authority," he added. "And these agreements the presidents do with international bodies need to come [before] the Senate for ratification; they'll end up being better agreements for America."

Johnson cited the WHO's ties with Beijing as a factor in motivating the bill and lamented an alleged coverup between China and the WHO as to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Well, first of all, recognize what a miserable job we did responding to the pandemic, certainly World Health Organization was captured by China," he contended. "It's one of the reasons we still don't know the origin because they cooperated with them and covering it up. So a World Health Organization that does such a miserable job should not be given greater responsibility."

A growing number of federal agencies have thrown their weight behind the theory that COVID-19 originated as the result of a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, which was known to have been researching coronaviruses prior to the first reported cases of the disease.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.

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