Pryor struggles with Ebola question

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) struggled mightily with his answer when asked how President Obama has handled the ongoing Ebola crisis on Monday.

{mosads}Pryor, who ran an ad attacking his opponent, Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), on Ebola earlier in the campaign, didn’t answer when asked repeatedly by MSNBC whether he thought President Obama had handled the crisis well.

“I would say that it’s hard to know because I haven’t heard the latest briefing on that, to know all the details,” Pryor responds after a full five-second pause. “I read the paper and all. My impression is we have people over there both from the CDC and other medical-type people and even some engineers to try to build, you know, medical facilities. That’s what they need over there.”

“Again, I’d have to see the latest numbers,” Pryor said when asked a follow-up.

The GOP outside group America Rising blasted around the clip.

Pryor’s campaign ran a controversial ad in late August saying Cotton voted against emergency medical funding. The two are locked in a tight race, though Cotton has led in more public polling.

This isn’t the first time Pryor has gotten in trouble during an interview with MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt. Last spring, he told her that Cotton, an Army reservist, gave off a “sense of entitlement.”

“it’s almost just like ‘I served my country, therefore let me into the Senate.’ That’s not how it works in Arkansas,'” Pryor said then in comments that drew heat.