Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., is scrambling furiously to explain why he failed earlier this week to answer a simple question about President Obama’s handling of the Ebola crisis.
The vulnerable Democratic senator was asked Monday by an MSNBC reporter whether Obama “has done an appropriate job” addressing the deadly virus. The senator stumbled hard answering the question, opting instead to mumble something mostly unintelligible.
So, in response to the unsurprisingly bad press that his answer garnered, Pryor’s office on Tuesday released a statement seeking to clarify his position on the issue.
“I’ve given better answers to tougher questions, but the fact is we’ve got to do everything possible to prevent an outbreak here at home,” the senator said in a statement first obtained by MSNBC.
“That starts with containing the disease’s spread in Western Africa, and our military and airport screening efforts are the right thing to do,” the statement added. “What’s not right, however, is to vote against adequate funding for the Center for Disease Control, which [Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.] has done.”
The prepared response, drafted by Pryor’s damage control team, still fails to answer the original question: “Do you think that the Obama administration has done an appropriate job handling the Ebola crisis?”
Compare Pryor’s Tuesday’s response to what he said on Monday to MSNBC: “I would say that it’s hard to know, uh, because, uh, I haven’t heard the latest briefing on that to know all the details,” the senator said.
“I mean, I read the paper and all, but my impression is that we have people over there, both from [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and other medical-type people and even some engineers to try to build, uh, you know, medical facilities,” he added. “That’s what they need over there. They need the medical infrastructure.”
So yes: Given time and the opportunity to discuss damage control with his rapid response team, Mark Pryor managed to swing and miss again on the Obama Ebola question.
Pryor is facing a tough re-election challenge from his Republican opponent, Tom Cotton, who leads 45 to 41 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.
