The American medical professionals infected with the Ebola virus should have been treated overseas instead of being flown back to the United States, renowned conservative columnist and author Patrick Buchanan says.
"I'm of two minds. I am a believer that, you know, we take care of our own people," Buchanan said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"But at the same time, if this is really a contagious or infectious disease that could really spread, it might've been better to send the best … medical people we've got to treat them over there.
"[And treat them] until this disease got to the point where it was no longer infectious or contagious before you brought them home.''
On Saturday, Dr. Kent Brantly, stricken with Ebola in Liberia, West Africa, returned to the United States for treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Brantly's assistant Nancy Writebol, who also contracted the disease, is expected to arrive in America this week.
Buchanan said he feels the same way about prioritizing the nation's health as he does about the immigration issue.
"We've got to take care of our own people first. We've got to think about their health, security, safety, our own country first,'' he said.
"I mean, it's wonderful to have pity … and to feel for folks and to help them out. But the first priority of the father of a family is to take care of the family.''
Buchanan, the former senior adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, is author of the new book "
The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority,'' published by Crown Forum.
He says he can vividly recall the day Nixon announced his intention to resign from office amid the Watergate scandal, some 40 years ago this week.
"I remember standing behind the TV cameras over in the East Room [of the White House] … when he delivered the final farewell to the staff and walking out and watching him give the wave before he got on the helicopter,'' Buchanan said.
"It was a very sad day because I'd been with him at the very beginning back in 1965, when he started back up the hill from those horrendous defeats to JFK [for president] and to Pat Brown [for California governor].
"He started back up to put that party together … [He] enabled himself to win the presidency going through all of that hellish 1968 of riots, assassinations, and campus disorders and all the rest … [for a] 49-state victory in 1972 — and now it was all washed away.''
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