White House Appoints An Ebola ‘Czar’

President Barack Obama is naming Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden and an adviser at the White House, as the point man on the U.S. government's response to the Ebola crisis.

A White House official says Klain "will report directly to the president's Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco and ... National Security Adviser Susan Rice as he ensures that efforts to protect the American people by detecting, isolating and treating Ebola patients in this country are properly integrated but don't distract from the aggressive commitment to stopping Ebola at the source in West Africa."

Klain, a former chief of staff to vice presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore, is currently president of case holdings and general counsel at Revolution LLC, a technology-oriented venture capital firm based in Washington, D.C.

The White House official tells NPR's Tamara Keith that Klain's role "is consistent with the view the president articulated in the Oval Office last night that Monaco, Rice and others have done outstanding work in confronting this challenge so far — but given their management of other national and homeland security priorities, additional bandwidth will further enhance the government's Ebola response."