MSNBC anchor Joy Reid falsely accused the Trump administration of rejecting a World Health Organization coronavirus test.
"Trump again today alleged remarkably that the World Health Organization—whose gold standard, approved coronavirus test Trump ordered the Centers for Disease Control to reject—he's now accusing that World Health Organization of minimizing the threat," Reid said on Wednesday evening.
A Politifact fact-check found that this claim is "mostly false" because the Centers for Disease Control never attempted to buy the kits in the first place.
"No discussions occurred between WHO and CDC about WHO providing COVID-19 tests to the United States," a WHO spokeswoman told Politifact. "This is consistent with experience since the United States does not ordinarily rely on WHO for reagents or diagnostic tests because of sufficient domestic capacity."
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden made the same false claim at the March 15 Democratic debate. CNN initially defended Biden's claim before walking back its own fact check.
Despite repeating the discredited talking point, Reid criticized Trump for making an "almost uncountable number of unsubstantiated claims" during the coronavirus press briefings.