McCain: Obama Slow to Act on Every Crisis, Including Ebola

Presidential leadership has been missing for six years, and it's still missing during the Ebola crisis, Sen. John McCain says.

President Barack Obama "has been slow" for every crisis that's hit the United States in recent years, the Arizona Republican told Fox News' "On the Record" host Greta Van Susteren on Friday night, saying that he "harkens" back to late President Ronald Reagan.

Reagan, McCain said, "would have been on national television looking in the camera and saying 'my fellow Americans we are facing a crisis here and here is what I am doing because I'm in charge. Here are the people that you can look to. From there is ways of addressing crises and it requires, first of all, presidential leadership.' That has been missing throughout the last six years."

Meanwhile, McCain, said Friday's appointment of an Ebola "czar," adds another level of bureaucracy to the issue when there is already a cabinet-level person who answers to the president.

"The American people need to look to someone who has the knowledge, expertise, and background who can assure them we are taking the measures necessary," said McCain, noting that he does not think that person should be Vice President Joe Biden's former chief of staff Ron Klain.

Further, McCain said that he thinks Americans have been reassured "quite honestly, falsely," on Ebola.

At first, he said, it was emphasized that Ebola wouldn't come to the United States. Then, said McCain, Dallas nurse Amber Vinson was given permission to fly on a commercial plane, even when she had Ebola symptoms.

"That's what happens when you have a lack of leadership and discipline and that isn't just this issue," said McCain. "It's the IRS, it's the Secret Service, frankly, it's also our entire approach to the situation in the Middle East and this Iraq and Syria (situation) which continues to deteriorate. Is there anybody who believes that what we're doing now will degrade and destroy ISIS? I don't know of anyone."

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