NBC host Chuck Todd grilled White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer on the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola threat during Sunday’s episode of “Meet the Press.”
Just as CDC Director Tom Frieden and President Obama have done, Pfeiffer took the cool, calm and collected approach to discussing the disease, speaking confidently about America’s ability to contain the threat.
“The first thing we need to do is make sure that the America people understand how hard it is to contract Ebola and to understand that there is no country in the world better prepared than the United States to deal with this,” explained Pfeiffer. “We have the best public health infrastructure and the best doctors in the world. We’ve been preparing for this eventuality since the outbreak in West Africa seven months ago.”
Though he would not admit if the U.S. would implement further measures to control the disease, Pfeiffer did insist that the Obama administration would “constantly evaluate” the measures that are currently in place to reduce the Ebola threat.
“It’s important for people to understand that this operation has been happening for seven months in West Africa and this is the first time that someone has come to the United States,” said Pfeiffer. “So, we’re prepared for this, but we’ll always be evaluating. The president is focused on this everyday.”
The White House official described the president’s administration as “very confident in the procedures [they] have in place.”
“The American people should know that the president is focused on this everyday, he’s briefed on it everyday,” he assured Todd.
As the “Meet the Press” host pointed out, however, there exists a “trust deficit” among the American people when it comes to the government because of the multiple issues that have arose over the last 18 months, including Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, the VA’s fake wait times, the IRS losing emails, the disastrous HealthCare.gov launch, Obama’s admission that the U.S. intelligence community underestimated ISIS, the border crisis and the White House security breach.
“Why should we trust what you’re saying about the CDC [being] able to handle this?” Todd asked matter-of-factly.
“People should know that every one of the situations you mentioned where a problem arises, we deal with it,” Pfeiffer responded. “We deal with it quickly, we deal with it forcefully.”
“There always is a good reaction,” countered Todd. “Ebola needs to be proaction.”
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