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President Obama talked up his administration's response to Ebola and the procedures standing as a line of defense against the spread of the virus in the U.S. while flanked by military and civilian advisors.

After several minutes of this show of force, he ended with an unscripted message: the desperate circumstances and need for help fighting Ebola in West Africa.

"Let's keep in mind that, as we speak, there are children on the streets dying of this disease thousands of them," Obama told reporters Monday. "Obviously my first job is to make sure that we're taking care of the American people, but we have a larger role than that."

The moment revealed a tension in the president's response to the deadly disease that's devastating parts of West Africa and causing fear in the United State.

While Obama and his team have embarked on a public campaign to reassure Americans that Ebola will be contained and conquered by the U.S. health system, the president has also tried to turn attention to the core of the outbreak 5,000 miles away.

The dual goals conflict at times. The diagnosis of a Liberian man in Dallas last week turned Ebola from a simmering yet distant problem to a much nearer concern. White House spokesman Josh Earnest reiterated Tuesday that additional screening protocols are being developed for travelers.

The White House appears to have found itself taken aback by the man's arrival in the U.S. and subsequent diagnosis. Last month, the president went to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and declared that the necessary safeguards were in place to "so that someone with the virus doesn't get on a plane for the United States." He downplayed the possibility of Ebola crossing the ocean as "unlikely."

But officials are engaged in a full-scale campaign of managing the message at home and "injecting reality" into the conversation, said one administration official who would not be named relaying internal discussions.

How they do so is being closely watched by health advocates and experts.

When Obama announced that he was sending military personnel to West Africa, Laurie Garrett, an expert on infectious diseases and global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that she was pleased to hear a shift in rationale. Until then, officials had too often based the case for U.S. involvement on the potential that the disease could mutate and endanger Americans, rather than the "catastrophic" threat the disease posed to the economy or the people in the region, she said at the time.

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Obama pulled 2 ways in responding to Ebola