You're listening to The West Wing Weekly. I'm Joshua Malina. And I'm Rishi Keish

Hereway. Today we're talking about Season 2 Episode 4. It's called In This White House.

And we'll be joined later on by special guest Emily Proctor, who makes her first appearance

in The West Wing as Ainsley Hayes. The teleplay is by Aaron Sorkin, the story by Peter

Parnell and Alison Abner. This episode was directed by Ken Olen and it originally aired

on October 25th, 2000. Here's a synopsis from TV Guide. The West Wing gets a right-winger

as young Republican lawyer Ainsley Hayes signs on as Associate White House Counsel. She's

offered the job at the insistence of the president after he sees her demolish Sam on

a TV talk show. Meanwhile, the president of an AIDS-ravaged African country visits White

House and spars with drug company executives. So our discussion of this episode with Emily

Proctor is coming up, but first since the AIDS crisis in Africa is a central part of this

episode, we wanted to get some real-world context for the issue. I spoke to Ambassador at

large Deborah Birx. She was previously the director of the CDC's Division of Global HIV

and AIDS, and now she serves as the United States Global AIDS Coordinator. This is Debbie

Birx, the Global AIDS Coordinator from the U.S. Department of State. Thank you so much

for joining me and then talking to us on the West Wing Weekly.

Happy to do it. It was a show I always watched. How accurately in this episode do you think

the AIDS epidemic was characterized? I think it was characterized extraordinarily accurately.

So we really, and the world had really not turned its attention to how severe the epidemic

was in Africa. And I think it captured it so well in that 1999-2000 was the amazing

turning point for the U.S. government to really recognize the amazing death and destruction.

I was working in Kareacher, Kenya, and patients would become in by the cart load, and the

...