President Obama is taking his cues from the United Nation’s World Health Organization when he should be looking to protect Americans first, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) argued Wednesday.
“The President has said, ‘Well I’ll follow the guidelines of the World Health Organization.’ That’s what he said and you know the Word Health Organization is run by the United Nations, not the United States. It is much more of a political organization. And the President is trying to be politically correct,” Barrasso, an orthopedic surgeon, said on a conference call with Sen. John Thune (R-SD), hosted by the Iowa Republican Party.
Barrasso tied Iowa’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Bruce Braley to the President arguing that he, like Obama, is focused more on what to say about Ebola than what to do about it.
Braley is currently in a tight race against Republican Joni Ernst, who has called for a temporary travel ban on Ebola affected countries.
“The president of the United States, Members of Congress take an oath of office to protect and defend this country, the Constitution, and yet we don’t see that coming from the President who wants to depend on whatever the World Health Organization has to say,” Barrasso said. “Whatever the United Nations has to say. And what we have in Joni Ernst as well as in John Thune and John Barrasso are people who want to make sure the United states is put first, not the United Nations.”
Thune stressed that the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola crisis has been “unacceptable.”
“We shouldn’t delay, I should say, to take additional measures to prevent individuals carrying the virus from traveling to the United States. We believe that a temporary travel ban for such individuals who live in or have traveled from certain western African countries is reasonable and it’s timely,” Thune said.
Given that the Obama administration has refused to institute such restrictions, Thune added, Congress must act.
“We want to push to pass a travel ban as soon as possible when Congress returns,” he said.