Obama says he is ‘furious’ at oil spill, but anger won’t plug well

The full interview will air later Thursday night on CNN.

The president has been
pressured by some observers, including Democratic strategist James
Carville, to show more emotion over the spill and play a more active
role in the response to the spill, which Obama has called the worst
environmental disaster in U.S. history. 

Obama said BP has “felt
the anger” and he would prefer them to have a more “rapid response” to
the spill. 

Both the government and BP have struggled to find a fast solution to
stop the leak. The “top kill” procedure to stem the flow last week
failed, and workers are now focusing on drilling two “relief wells” to
halt the oil leaking from the underwater well that is a mile deep.

The president’s comments come one day before he makes his third visit
to the Gulf Coast to assess the damage to the environment and local
economies. 

The Obama administration has taken heat from
members of Congress in both parties who have said the administration was slow to
realize the magnitude of the spill and also to reform the agency that is
supposed to oversee oil drilling. 

But Obama hit back at that criticism, saying he “realized right away this was going to be a
big event, a big problem, and that we had to put everything we had into
it.”

Aside from the impact on marine life in the Gulf of Mexico,
commercial fishermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have
been hard-hit. 

Obama said he would “love” to spend a lot
of his time “venting and yelling at people” but said that it is more
important to find a solution to plug the leak from the underwater oil
well quickly. 

“My job is to solve this problem and ultimately
this isn’t about me and how angry I am,” he said. “Ultimately this is
about the people down in the Gulf who are being impacted and what am I
doing to make sure that they’re able to salvage their way of life. And
that’s going to be the main focus that I’ve got in the weeks and months
ahead.”