Vice President Mike Pence vowed the United States will ask the World Health Organization 'tough questions' over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic and said the group 'diminished' the threat of the deadly disease.

Pence, in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity Wednesday night, echoed President Donald Trump's criticism of the group.

'This is a president who believes in accountability, and the American taxpayers provide tens of millions of dollars to the World Health Organization,' Pence said. 'And as the president said yesterday, I suspect we will continue to do that, but that doesn't mean that at the right time in the future we aren't going to ask the tough questions about how the World Health Organization could have been so wrong.'

The Trump administration has taken aim at the WHO as the death troll in the United States approaches 15,000.

Earlier Wednesday, President Trump accused the group of minimizing the threat of the coronavirus as he escalated the war-of-words with the humanitarian group, a charge Pence repeated.

'Literally at the time President Trump stood up the coronavirus task force in January and suspended all travel from China, just days before that, the World Health Organization was continuing to diminish the threat of the coronavirus and its impact in China,' the vice president said. 'We'll get to the answers of that and we'll create accountability, just like the American people would want us to do.'

Vice President Mike Pence vowed the United States will ask the World Health Organization 'tough questions' over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic

The Trump administration has targeted the World Health Organization and its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

President Donald Trump and other officials have accused the WHO of minimizing the threat of the coronavirus in the early days

The World Health Organization has become a target of President Trump's ire and he has repeatedly blasted it for not doing enough to combat the coronavirus in its early days, before it entered the public conscious.

'The WHO got it wrong, they got up very wrong. In many ways they were wrong. They also minimized the threat very strongly,' Trump said Wednesday at his daily White House press briefing.

Additionally, Republican Senator Todd Young, the chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Multilateral Institutions, which has jurisdiction over the WHO, sent a letter to Tedros requesting him to appear before a congressional hearing on the WHO’s response to coronavirus.

'I will be convening a Subcommittee hearing once it is safe to meet to investigate the WHO’s response to novel coronavirus, examine questions about how American taxpayers will be funding this organization in the future, and will be inviting you to attend as a witness before the panel. A formal hearing notice and invitation will be forthcoming at a later date,' he wrote on Thursday.

And White House economic adviser Peter Navarro added fuel to the fire Wednesday night when he slammed WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu as one of China's 'proxies'.

On Wednesday, Trump focused his attack on WHO's contradicting statements on the virus.

'As you know they made a statement January 14th that there was no human to human transmission -- there was,' Trump said.

The WHO tweeted on January 14, citing Chinese officials who claimed there had been no human transmissions of the virus in its country.

The group later acknowledged there was human-to-human transmission.

In his continued war against the WHO, the president reiterated his complaint that the agency was critical when he shut down flights from certain parts of China and he went on to complain about how much money the United States gave the group, which is part of the United Nations.

He said he was thinking about holding back millions of American funding.

'We are going to study and investigation and make a determination as to what we're doing. In the meantime we are holding back,' he said.

His comments came after the head of the World Health Organization warned the president to stop politicizing the coronavirus crisis 'if you don't want many more body bags.'

'At the end of the day, the people belong to all political parties. The focus of all political parties should be to save their people, please do not politicize this virus,' WHO Director-General Tedros said in a virtual press briefing.

'If you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags, then you do it. If you don't want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it.'

Trump fired back.

'So when he say's politicizing he's politicizing, and he shouldn't be,' the president said at his daily briefing when he was asked about Tedros' comment.

'I can't believe he's talking about politics when look at the relationship they have to China,' Trump said and repeated his charge the agency favored China above other countries.

Tedros, at his briefing, made an appeal for global unit and said all leaders of all political parties should focus on saving their people.

'Unity is the only option to defeat this virus,' he said.

'Without unity, we assure you even any country that may have a better system will be in trouble and more crisis. That's our message. Unity at the national level,' he said. 'No need to use COVID to score political points. No need. You have many other ways to prove yourselves.'

A tweet from the WHO in January pushing out the disinformation fed to it by Beijing about the virus, which it was reticent to declare a pandemic

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu warned President Donald Trump to stop politicizing the coronavirus crisis 'if you don't want many more body bags'

President Trump attacked the World Health Organization on Tuesday, calling it too 'China centric' and suggesting that it was hiding information about the coronavirus from the rest of the world

'The United States and China should come together and fight this dangerous enemy,' Tedros said. 'They should come together to fight it and the rest of G-20 should come together to fight it, and the rest of the world should come together and fight it.

'We will have many body bags in front of us if we don't behave,' he noted. 'When there are cracks at [the] national level and global level, that is when the virus succeeds.

The organization has become the latest target of President Trump in his blame game as he points the finger for the devastating effects of the coronavirus - an economic down turn and over 12,000 American deaths - at everyone but his administration. Also feeling Trump's fury has been China, the states, governors and the Democrats.

The president has called it 'China-centric' and complained they 'missed the call' when it came to the coronavirus.

Tedros was called a 'proxy' of China by White House economic adviser Peter Navarro in an interview with Fox's The Story Wednesday night.

'The U.N. itself has 15 specialized agencies, including the WHO,' Navarro said to host Martha MacCallum.

'What China has been doing very aggressively over the last decade is to try to gain control of those by electing people to the top. It already controls five of the 15, also, by using proxies, colonial-like proxies, like Tedros [Adhanom Ghebreyesus] at the WHO.

'As you can see in this crisis, the damage [done by] that kind of control by China [of] the key health organization has been absolutely enormous. They suppressed the human to human transmission [data], they refused to call it a pandemic,' he added.

Tedros was called a 'proxy' of China by White House economic adviser Peter Navarro in an interview with Fox 's The Story Wednesday night

'What China has been doing very aggressively over the last decade is to try to gain control of those by electing people to the top. It already controls five of the 15, also, by using proxies, colonial-like proxies, like Tedros [Adhanom Ghebreyesus] at the WHO,' Navarro said to host Martha MacCallum

Navarro defended the president's consideration to cut funding to the WHO saying the lack of transparency cost the US 'about five weeks' of preparation for the virus that has already claimed over 14,000 lives

He then made a jab at Tedros' leadership, commenting on how WHO 'basically discouraged travel bans.'

Navarro defended the president's consideration to cut funding to the WHO saying the lack of transparency cost the US 'about five weeks' of preparation for the virus that has already claimed over 14,000 lives.

Tedros is an Ethiopian microbiologist and internationally recognized malaria researcher, who is the the first non-physician and first African to head the health organization, a role he has held since 2017.

He previously served as Ethiopia's minister of health and minister of foreign affairs.

Tedros, who is black, said he doesn't 'care about personal attacks' against himself, addressing the death threats and insults he's experienced amid the global pandemic, which has seen 1.5 million cases worldwide with more than 88,000 deaths in 209 countries across the world.

'I can tell you personal attacks that have been going on for more than two, three months. Abuses, or racist comments, giving me names, Black or Negro. I'm proud of being Black, proud of being Negro,' he said. 'I don't care to be honest ... even death threats. I don't give a damn.'

On Tuesday President Trump launched a full-scale attack against the agency when he was withholding the millions of dollars the United States' contributed to it before reversing himself to say there should be an investigation of the group's response to the pandemic.

At a daily press briefing, Trump accused the WHO of mishandling the coronavirus outbreak and said: 'We're going to put a hold on money.'

When asked by reporters whether it was wise to slash funding to the WHO during a time of emergency, the president quickly backtracked and said he was only looking into a possible suspension of funds.

But he doubled down on his criticism of the group.

'They called it wrong, they called it wrong, they missed the call,' Trump said.

'They should have known and they probably did know,' he added, suggesting the group was withholding information about the coronavirus.

Trump's main beef with the United Nations health group is that leadership there said it wasn't necessary to ban travelers coming in from China as the coronavirus started spreading beyond Wuhan, where it originated.

The president has bragged that his early ban of some travelers from China kept it from being a greater threat to the U.S.

Trump has followed the lead of prominent conservatives in complaining that the WHO has been too friendly to China during the coronavirus crisis.

Earlier on Tuesday, the president attacked the WHO for being 'China centric'.

World Health Organization criticized for its response to the coronavirus crisis The World Health Organization has been criticized for its response to the coronavirus pandemic. As concern about the crisis developing in Wuhan grew, the WHO followed the Chinese government's line by stating there was 'no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission'. The United Nations agency then took another week to correct that statement. The WHO has also been criticized for not standing up to the disinformation coming from Beijing, which has been accused of downplaying the seriousness of the outbreak and misreporting its true death toll figures. WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been slammed for his praise of the way China has responded to the pandemic. Dr Tedros has at times called out other countries for their handling of the crisis. In particular he lamented the 'level of stigma we are observing' in reference to the language used by President Trump to describe it as the 'China virus'. On January 31, the Trump administration announced travel restrictions on people coming from China due to the outbreak. But on February 3, WHO said such bans on travel and trade were not needed. As the contagion began to spread outside of Wuhan where it originated, the WHO reassured the world that the virus was a regional problem. Most countries have since adopted the same stringent 'stay at home' rules and others have imposed lockdowns restricting citizens' movements. In late January, when the virus had already spread to several countries, a WHO emergency committee debated whether to declare COVID-19 a 'public health emergency of international concern'. However Dr Tedros declined amid Beijing's objections and instead traveled to China, before finally making the declaration a week later on January 30. At the time he said: 'The Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken. 'I left in absolutely no doubt about China's commitment to transparency.' Also in late January, Tedros complimented China's President Xi Jinping for the country's handling of the virus, as the Chinese leader centralized the response after local officials in Wuhan couldn't keep the outbreak under control. Advertisement

He wrote on Twitter: 'The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look.'

The World Health Organization has been criticized for not pushing China to clarify its response and question its numbers on the disease. There is skepticism about the numbers Beijing is reporting.

Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO's regional director for Europe, defended the group.

He said: 'We are now in an acute phase of the pandemic - now is not the time to cut back on funding.'

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric also rejected Trump's criticism of the WHO and backed director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for his 'tremendous work'.

'For the Secretary General [Antonio Guterres] it is clear that WHO, under the leadership of Dr. Tedros, has done tremendous work on COVID in supporting countries with millions of pieces of equipment being shipped out, on helping countries with training, on providing global guidelines. WHO is showing the strength of the international health system', he told reporters.

The WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency on Jan. 30, which was 43 days before President Trump declared a national emergency in the United States.

The group is part of the United Nations and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland with 150 offices around the world.

The agency is funded in two ways - through assessed contributions and voluntary contributions.

The assessed contributions, which are like dues to the organization, are calculated by looking at a country's wealth and population.

In its February budget proposal, the Trump administration called for slashing the U.S. contribution to the WHO in half from the previous fiscal year - from $122.6 million to $57.9 million.

While the U.S. pays the most in assessed contributions, that full pot of money has only accounted for less than 25 per cent of WHO's haul over the past few years.

However, Americans NGOs and charity organizations, along with taxpayer dollars, do make up the biggest chunk of the WHO's funding.

Trump said near the start of his virus briefing Tuesday: 'The WHO, that's the World Health Organization, receives vast amounts of money from the United States and we pay for a majority, the biggest portion of their money, and they actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it.

'And they were wrong. They've been wrong about a lot of things.'

'And they had a lot of information early and they didn't want to - they seemed to be very China centric,' he said, changing the point he was trying to make mid-sentence.

Later in the briefing Trump threatened to cut off the WHO's supply of money from the United States.

Trump added: 'We're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. We're going to put a very powerful hold on it. And we're going to see.

'It's a great thing when it works but when they call every shot wrong that's not good. They are always on the side of China.'

When the president was asked if it was a smart move to cut off funds to the major global health organization during a worldwide pandemic he backed away from his previous threat.

'I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but I'm going to look at it,' Trump pledged.

The president was also asked why he thought the WHO was 'China centric'.

Trump responded: 'I don't know, they seem to come down on the side of China.'

'Don't close your borders to China, don't do this, they don't report what's really going on, they didn't see it and yet they were there. They didn't see what was going on in Wuhan...they must have seen it, but they didn't report it,' he said.

Medics wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), unload COVID-19 patients arriving to the Montefiore Medical Center Moses Campus in the Bronx

World Health Organisation (WHO) European director Hans Kluge defended the agency after Trump threatened to cut funding. He is pictured (above) during a joint press conference on the Danish handling of coronavirus last month

Trump suggested he might cut the US's funding that goes toward WHO, calling the United Nations agency 'very China centric'

On January 31, the Trump administration announced travel restrictions on people coming from China due to the outbreak.

But WHO said such bans were not needed, noting that 'travel bans to affected areas or denial of entry to passengers coming from affected areas are usually not effective in preventing the importation' of coronavirus cases, but may instead 'have a significant economic and social impact.'

And the group noted that 'restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions.'

'Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on,' Trump tweeted Tuesday.

'Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?' the president asked.

WHO is also still not recommending that every person wears a mask, while the Centers of Disease Control made the voluntary recommendation last week.

In late January, Tedros complimented China's President Xi Jinping for the country's handling of the virus, as the Chinese leader centralized the response after local officials in Wuhan couldn't keep the outbreak under control.

But Xi also controlled the flow of information, with reports coming out of China that the country had been trying to silence whistleblowers.