President Barack Obama is consulting experts to find out “whose ass to kick” over the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, NBC reported Monday.
The comment was made in an interview with the network’s Matt Lauer, to be screened on “Today” Tuesday.
“I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf,” Obama said.
“A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be.”
A new poll released Monday showed more than two-thirds of Americans rate the U.S. government’s response to the oil spill negatively, as compared to the 62 percent negative rating given to the 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina.
The new poll, conducted by ABC/The Washington Post, found that 69 percent of Americans viewed the federal government’s response to the spill negatively.
The Obama administration has been criticized for not stepping in during attempts to cap the well and instead putting its faith in BP.
“I don’t sit around talking to experts because this is a college seminar,” Obama said.
“We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.”
U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen on Monday said BP had collected 11,000 barrels of oil from the ruptured well in the Gulf in the last 24 hours.
The new estimate is up from 6,000 barrels collected daily by BP from a containment cap it placed on the mile-deep well. Allen said that government estimates believe the well could be leaking as much as 25,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico.
BP’s latest efforts follow a string of failed attempts to plug the well. The company and U.S. government have both warned that the leak might continue until August, when relief wells can be completed.
Eleven men were killed on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig when it caught fire April 20. It sank two days later. Obama has invited the families of the men to the White House for a meeting on Thursday.