Donna Mobilizes the Infant‑Mortality Push
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Josh apologizes to Donna for keeping her late, revealing the urgency of the infant-mortality push while downplaying her concerns.
Donna transitions from personal frustration to professional focus as Josh delegates the policy council mobilization.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Alert and expectant — ready to be deployed for quick tasks but not yet engaged.
Becky is summoned implicitly by Josh's initial 'Come in. Becky, also...' but is not given a substantive line or task in this segment; she is present as a potential support resource.
- • Be prepared to assist with immediate operational tasks if called upon.
- • Maintain responsiveness to senior staff direction.
- • Junior staff exist to execute urgent tasks when senior staff require them.
- • Showing availability is professionally important.
Focused and pragmatic, with a restrained personal fatigue; apologetic toward staff for imposing extra work but resolute about execution.
Josh is on the phone when Bartlet appears; he listens, parses the President's intent, reframes the order into actionable terms, accepts responsibility, and immediately issues operational instructions to Donna and the Policy Council.
- • Convert the President's moral directive into a workable, time‑bounded policy package.
- • Protect staff morale and minimize disruption while meeting the January 1 deadline.
- • Presidential orders must be executed even if politically or logistically costly.
- • Operational details (policy council, OMB offsets) can solve seemingly impossible mandates if coordinated quickly.
Determined and morally restless — urgency driven by ethical conviction rather than political calculation.
Bartlet physically enters Josh's office, delivers an impulsive but morally charged directive to fold Olympia Buckland's infant‑mortality initiative into the HHS budget, and leaves after a brief confirmation exchange.
- • Ensure infant‑mortality funding is implemented before the January 1 printing deadline.
- • Translate moral outrage at previous inaction into immediate executive action.
- • Some policy failures require executive forcing even against logistical inconvenience.
- • If the White House prioritizes something, the bureaucracy (OMB, staff) can be marshalled to achieve it.
Resigned professionalism: privately annoyed about overtime but outwardly cooperative and efficient.
Donna is in the bullpen; she responds to Josh's brief apology and instructions, suppresses her personal grievance about being kept late, and readies herself to call the Policy Council and assemble people and documents.
- • Mobilize the Policy Council quickly and find the right people to package the initiative.
- • Minimize her own and the team's disruption while following Josh's orders.
- • Josh's instructions must be followed; personal plans are secondary to the President's directive.
- • Her competence and reliability are expected — delays or complaints would make things worse.
Not present; likely unaware or hopeful if informed later.
Olympia Buckland is referenced as the sponsor of the infant‑mortality bill; she is not present but her initiative is the object of the President's order and will be operationalized by staff.
- • See her infant‑mortality proposal enacted and funded.
- • Have her politically risky but morally aimed policy accepted by the administration.
- • The policy is worth the political and fiscal cost because of moral necessity.
- • White House support is critical to overcoming committee or cost objections.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The HHS Budget is the concrete target of Bartlet's order: staff must 'nip and tuck' across departments to insert funding for infant mortality before the January 1 printing. It functions narratively as the bureaucratic mechanism through which moral intent must be translated into numbers and line items.
Olympia Buckland's infant‑mortality initiative is the policy artifact Bartlet wants folded into the HHS Budget; it acts as the moral fulcrum of the scene, forcing staff to prioritize human cost over fiscal convenience.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Sudan is referenced in Josh's opening phone call as the site of deployed units; while not central to the budget order, the mention establishes competing global demands on staff attention and resources.
Josh's Bullpen Area becomes the operational staging ground immediately after Bartlet's visit; Josh moves there to brief and dispatch Donna and others, converting the private directive into collective work.
Turkey is invoked earlier as the site of an earthquake affecting U.S. relief units; its mention underscores why Josh is on the phone and why staff have limited bandwidth for an immediate new budget rewrite.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The Domestic Policy Council is summoned by Josh (via Donna) to package the initiative; it will coordinate across departments and agencies to craft the language, offsets, and political framing required for the HHS insertion.
Congress is referenced indirectly — Josh notes the option of making it a priority 'with the next Congress' — highlighting that legislative approval and printing deadlines shape how the White House times and frames budget maneuvers.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is explicitly invoked by Bartlet as the instrument that can execute around‑the‑clock budget changes; the President expects OMB to absorb the deadline pressure and produce offsets.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the budgetary home where the infant‑mortality language must be placed; it is the institutional locus that will have to absorb programmatic language and funding lines.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Bartlet's concern about infant mortality rates directly causes him to task Josh with the urgent policy initiative, linking personal guilt to political action."
"Bartlet's concern about infant mortality rates directly causes him to task Josh with the urgent policy initiative, linking personal guilt to political action."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: "Listen, this is going to sound crazy but Olympia Buckland had an infant mortality bill that we asked her not to take out of committee 'cause it was too expensive. I'd like her initiative or something similiar to be folded into the HHS budget.""
"JOSH: "I... Yes, I think that you're saying that before it goes to the printer on January 1st, you want to rewrite the federal budget.""
"DONNA: "Were do we start?" JOSH: "Call the policy council. Tell them we need to package an initiative on infant mortality. I'll walk them through it.""