WASHINGTON (CN) — As stock markets quake and anxiety over the coronavirus spreads, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo worked in a deeply contentious hearing Friday to assure lawmakers that the Trump administration is capable of handling an outbreak in the U.S.
Pompeo was slated to focus his comments before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on President Donald Trump’s decision two months ago to assassinate Iran’s Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the country’s Quds force.
Tensions remain high, though no longer considered to be on the brink of war: In addition to having sold arms recently to U.S. adversaries in the Middle East, Iran has indicated that it will not resume nuclear nonproliferation negotiations until after the U.S. election in November.
Further complicating matters, the World Health Organization reported Tuesday that the coronavirus has killed at least 26 in Iran, with another 245 infected. This makes Iran’s virus death toll second only to the death toll in China where the virus originated.
During a briefing at the State Department this week, Pompeo claimed both Iran and China suppress data on infections and may be underselling the spread of the virus.
Seeking answers, Representative David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, asked Pompeo what his role, as the nation’s chief diplomat, would be in managing the global response to coronavirus. The secretary immediately rebuffed Cicilline and set what would become the acrimonious tone that dominated Friday’s testimony.
“We agreed I would come here to talk about Iran, and the first question today is not about Iran,” Pompeo bristled.
Cicilline pushed back sharply and demanded to know whether Pompeo consulted with anyone inside the Iranian government to coordinate a response to the virus.
“We’ve made offers to the Islamic Republic of Iran to help, and we’ve made it clear to others around the world and in the region that assistance, humanitarian assistance, to push back against the coronavirus in Iran is something the United States of America fully supports,” Pompeo said.
The secretary was light, however, on those assistance details Friday. When asked whether Iran’s infrastructure allowed it to handle the outbreak unassisted, Pompeo was not confident.
“Their health care infrastructure is not robust and information about what is going on inside their country has been limited to U.S. officials,” Pompeo said.
Nonetheless, Pompeo praised the State Department for its work addressing the coronavirus and said he was confident that the department would handle its response to possible global pandemic appropriately.
Representative Dean Phillips, D-Minnesota, seemed flabbergasted at the suggestion.
How, Phillips pressed, did Pompeo plan to address infectious disease when the Trump administration for the last two years cut a litany of related programs and, in the 2021 budget, has already proposed a 50% cut to the World Health Organization and a 40% cut to the CDC’s budge for global health security?
“We’ll have plenty of money,” Pompeo said before noting that if additional resources were required, the State Department would simply ask for them.
Phillips pointedly asked Pompeo if he understood why the public or Congress may consider his answers suspect in light of the Trump administration’s penchant for circulating misinformation.
“I don’t understand that,” Pompeo said, smiling broadly. “I have great confidence in our resources.”