A senior adviser to President Obama said Friday that one of the biggest threats the next administration faces on the homeland security front is the emergence of infectious diseases.
“The threat I would highlight here for the next team, quite frankly, is emerging infectious diseases,” Lisa Monaco, Obama’s top adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism, told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. She said that’s the kind of threat that she would be saying to the next administration, “you need to focus on this.”
“I think the emerging infectious diseases threat and the ability for it to move rapidly across borders and cause tremendous dislocation and crises is something the next team will have to confront,” she said.
Just as the Bush administration warned the incoming Obama administration officials about the increased cyberthreat they would face, Monaco said her top priority is to instill an understanding in her successor and the Trump administration that public health threats are something they need to anticipate.
“That is something the next team will have to confront,” she said.
During Monaco’s tenure, the Obama administration has been forced to address the silent and rapid spread of Zika in Puerto Rico and parts of southern Florida. The president called the situation “critical” during a press conference at the Pentagon earlier this summer after requesting $1.9 billion in emergency funds from Congress in February to fight the mosquito-borne virus.
Monaco has not met with her successor yet, presumably because the president-elect’s transition team is still working to fill the key position. But she said she is “eager to sit down with that person” to discuss the duties of the role and the greatest domestic threats Americans face.
“I hope that I have the opportunity to engage with my successor,” she said. “We’ve done a tremendous amount of work, the National Security Council has, to put together reams of information to carry out the president’s request, which is a smooth, comprehensive transition.”
