The Obama administration dropped the ball in protecting the United States against the threat of Ebola thanks to its liberal mindset, says Rep. Pete Sessions, chairman of the House Rules Committee.
"It is utterly amazing the CDC and the administration failed to get it. They failed to get that the basic elements of their job are to support and defend the United States of America, not the world," Sessions said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"But I guess when you're Barack Obama, you think you have to worry about everybody rather than your sworn duty. It is incredible for us to see this escalating the way it is. We offer nothing but excuses rather than let's fix this."
Sessions, a Texas Republican, said he urged CDC Chief Dr. Thomas Freiden earlier this month to "establish a foothold, a basis of understanding about how we could stop this dead in its tracks.
"He said stopping any air travel is not the way to do it, [and] referred me to a two-week old article that he had printed in the Financial Times."
Sessions said the argument that a travel ban will hurt the economies of West African nations is "completely academic and statistical" rather than realistic.
"The American people do see this for the threat it is and only today, two weeks later, is the president of the United States coming to the realization that he needs to get personally involved," he said, referring to Obama's cancellation of a fundraiser to attend a cabinet meeting on Ebola.
Sessions sees a lackadaisical, liberal mindset towards the crisis.
"I see a 'let's just keep going down this pathway, let's learn and see what happens and let's just adapt, this is America and we can do it', versus a mindset of a conservative that says this is a big threat, this is something we have not turned the corner on," Sessions said.
"But here's what the president and the CDC should have known. We do not effectively have not only the ability to understand how we quarantine people, we don't understand the right technology for how we address it with workers, what suit they wear, how you wash people down. And more importantly, we are without a vaccine or the ability to know how to fight this.
"That is why they should have fought … as conservatives and say, let's stop this dead in our tracks and let's go get done what we need to do. But we've not done that. We've discounted and underestimated this the whole way because of the laxness of this administration."
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