Subject: Fwd: Travel pool report #4 - spray after briefing
From: White House Press Office<[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 13:12:14 -0500

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Shear <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Date: May 4, 2016 at 2:08:29 PM EDT
To: "Gabriel, Brian A. Jr. EOP/WHO" <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>
Subject: Travel pool report #4 - spray after briefing

Pool was led into a small room where POTUS met for about an hour and a half with various federal officials who are in charge of the response to the water crisis here. (See below for WH summary of the meeting and a list of participants). Gov. Snyder and the mayor of Flint also participated.

The meeting took place at the food bank of eastern Michigan, which is a modern looking, fairly new building that has an office area with nice, wooden accents and a big warehouse area with boxes of food.

POTUS was seated at the head of a u-shaped table, with Gina McCarthy to his left and Sylvia Burwell to his right.

POTUS spoke for about 15 minutes and then took a drink of water from a glass that he said contained filtered Flint water.

Your pooler will work on getting POTUS comments to you shortly. Basically he thanked the federal officials for the response here and wait it was not time for the blame game. He also urged parents to have their kids checked and said that more work will need to be done to fix the problem long term.

Pool is headed to the motorcade at 2:06 pm

Background from the White House:

The President is meeting with federal officials at the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan to receive a briefing on the federal efforts in place to help respond to the needs of the people of Flint.
The Food Bank of Eastern Michigan is a community center that helped more than 300,000 people last year and has become a critical hub in the response to the water crisis. Federal and local officials have convened meetings at the food bank and the Red Cross holds a weekly meeting there. The facility's distribution center coordinates intake of water and food, packaging of water, meals and hygienic packages, as well as the shipment of needed goods into the community.
Participants in today's briefing include:

*         Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services

*         Amy Pope, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Homeland Security Advisor

*         Gina McCarthy, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency

*         Nicole "Nicki" Lurie, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Department of Health and Human Services and the Senior Response Official

*         Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President

*         Cecilia Munoz, Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council

*         Kathleen Falk, Director, Region V, Department of Health and Human Services

*         Tony Voirin, Unified Coordination Group Director and Regional Emergency Coordinator, Department of Health and Human Services

*         Mark Durno, On-Scene Coordinator and Region V Section Chief, Environmental Protection Agency

*         Micah Ragland, Associate Administrator for Public Engagement and Environmental Education, Environmental Protection Agency

*         Debbie Stabenow, United States Senator from Michigan

*         Dan Kildee, United States Representative for Michigan's 5th District

*         Brenda Lawrence, United States Representative for Michigan's 14th District

*         Debbie Dingell, United States Representative for Michigan's 12th District

*         Rick Snyder, Governor, State of Michigan

*         Karen Weaver, Mayor of Flint, Michigan

*         David Samaniego, Federal Coordinating Officer, Federal Emergency Management Agency

*         Tony Martin, Team Lead, Flint Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

*         Luseni Pieh, Deputy Chief of Staff, Environmental Protection Agency

*         Gretchen Michael, Department of Health and Human Services

*         Vista Fletcher, Department of Agriculture

*         Michelle Dunwoody, Department of Health and Human Services

*         Mark Johnson, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

*         Ron Pinheiro, Department of Health and Human Services

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Michael D. Shear
White House Correspondent
The New York Times
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
202-681-0415

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