CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So do you believe -- do you agree with what Walter Shaub -- the former ethics official said -- that this is late-stage corruption -- that firing these removes the last bulwark before authoritarianism sets in. I mean, those are pretty dramatic accusations. Do you agree with that?
SENATOR BOB MENENDEZ (D-NJ): Well, they are dramatic accusations, and, particularly within this administration, I have never seen a more opaque administration -- a less transparent administration -- one in which getting congressional oversight is so difficult. Every administration always pushes back against Congress -- I understand that -- I've been around long enough to understand that several administrations both Democrat and Republican. But I have never seen one like this administration trying to get basic information that I as a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee need to make intelligent decisions about global security issues -- global health issues.
It is impossible to make without the right information which means the honest information of what's happening -- what is the department doing. And so when you don't have an inspector general who can get you that information, when you can't investigate -- when you don't get witnesses before congressional committees because the administration stonewalls -- then the American people through their representatives are left in the dark.
AMANPOUR: And very finally because you talked about global health and of course America is in this terrible situation of being the world's -- I mean, America first in terms of infections and deaths, and it's very, very sad. The President has China in his crosshairs. I realize bipartisan issues exist with China in the United States, but do you think now is the time to pull the funding or threaten to pull all the funding for the WHO -- in the middle of a pandemic?
