All Hands On Deck: White House Convenes 27 Person Ebola Meeting

The Daily Caller ^ | October 26, 2014 | Derek Hunter

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Suffering a crisis of confidence over his leadership on Ebola a week before the midterm elections, President Barack Obama assembled a massive staff meeting on the issue at the White House Sunday.

Including the president, there were 24 people in physical attendance at the meeting CBS News said was convened “to discuss a nationwide policy for health care workers returning from West Africa.” Vice President Joe Biden joined via telephone, and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden and US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power joining via video teleconference.

Sunday, the New York Times reported President Obama was unhappy with the 21 day mandatory quarantine for health care workers returning from Ebola-impacted nations announced by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Behind the scenes, Obama has been pressuring the governors to lift the policy.

The quarantine made national news when its first subject, a nurse named Kaci Hickox, wrote a scathing op-ed on her forced confinement.

Attendees at the White House meeting include everyone from Secretary of State John Kerry and adviser Valeria Jarrett, to White House Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri and new Ebola Czar Ron Klain.

Here are the participants and their titles, courtesy of Mark Knoller of CBS News:

1. The President
2. The Vice President (via telephone)
3. John Kerry, Secretary of State
4. Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense
5. Eric Holder, Attorney General
6. Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services
7. Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Secretary
8. Denis McDonough, Chief of Staff
9. Shaun Donovan, Director of the Office of Management and Budget
10. Amb. Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (via video teleconference)
11. Valerie Jarrett, Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement
12. Susan Rice, National Security Advisor
13. Lisa Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
14. Neil Eggleston, Counsel to the President
15. John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology
16. Ron Klain, Ebola Response Coordinator
17. Thomas Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (via video teleconference)
18. Katie Fallon, Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs
19. Jennifer Palmieri, Director of Communications
20. Marisa Lago, Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development, Treasury Department
21. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease
22. Nancy Lindborg, Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development
23. Suzanne George, Chief of Staff of the National Security Council
24. Brian Egan, Deputy Counsel to the President
25. Rand Beers, Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security
26. Jeffrey Prescott, Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President
27. Gayle Smith, Senior Director for Development and Democracy, National Security Council

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

PING!

[uncitizen]

Wow! All 27 people agreed on everything before the meeting even began.

[Huskrrrr]

Send in the clowns.

[tcrlaf]

Making sure everyone has the same talking points, no matter what happens between now and election day.

[molson209]

27 and still no Brain in the room

[ConservativeMind]

A ship of fools led by someone who sneaked out for a smoke and 18 holes—missing the whole meeting.

[JohnBrowdie]

someone should photoshop the demotivational blurb about “none of us is as dumb as all of us” to a photo of that meeting.

[mojo114]

“All 27 people agreed on everything before the meeting even began.”
You are exacting right on this. How ridiculous is this meeting.
My gosh, we are doomed for failure on this one.

[catnipman]

The purpose of the meeting is to try to spin Obama out of his “crisis of confidence” for handling Ebola and has zip to do with taking actual effective measures to protect us from Ebola. In fact, looks like the biggest issue on the table will be how to reverse the effective actions taken by the governors.

After all, out of the 27, only one or two have any actual medical expertise.

[uncitizen]

Making sure everyone has the same talking points, no matter what happens between now and election day.

Shyeah...as if this meeting were about solving an actual problem other than how to "control the narrative "...

[Hugin]

[molson209]

Which day this week will Obama declare a State Of Emergency ?

[Hugin]

You beat me to it, but I have graphics.

[RightGeek]

[BunnySlippers]

What about the CSAR? Can’t he gat an invite?

[upchuck]

When you think about it, this is funny as Hell. Not Ebola, of course. But the idea that 27 people had to meet to figure this out.

Simple.

Prevent entry into the US by anyone that has been in an “Ebola Country.”

Spread the quarantine started by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie nationwide.

But, Obola leads from behind once again.

I’d like to know how long the meeting ran. Anything more than 15 or 20 minutes is a waste.

What needs to be done is obvious.

[NoLibZone]

They are panicking .

[skinkinthegrass]

an ring of liberal league-of-who's-who.
hope they all "catch it", good riddance. 😐
"let the poison leach-out"

[upchuck]

He’s number 16 on the list.