President Joe Biden has not addressed the American people about mysterious objects being shot out of the sky because the White House does not want to spark panic.
That was the answer given by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday when she was asked why Biden had not made a televised speech on the issue.
She said he was taking the matter seriously and was being briefed regularly.
‘And he’s going to continue to do that,’ she told reporters.
‘We are sharing as much information as we can as possible … but we do want to make sure that the American people understand that there’s no need to panic.’
Critics say it is simply not enough. Republicans and some Democrats say the administration is not being transparent about the sudden spate of objects being shot down over the U.S.
Earlier another spokesman admitted that the three most recent airborne craft — shot down days after a Chinese spy balloon was downed off the coast of South Carolina — could turn out to have a ‘commercial’ or ‘benign’ purpose.
Jean-Pierre faced repeated questions about the president’s silence and said she had nothing to say about forthcoming remarks.
She defended his handling of the apparent incursions.
‘The president took this action, as I mentioned earlier, because the objects were indeed flying at low, lower elevation, and they were in civilian airspace, and we wanted to make sure that we protected that airspace,’ she said.
‘But again, you know, we want to also make sure that the Americans do not panic during this time.’
Could it be, wondered another reporter, that an 80-year-old president with a history of gaffes was not the right person to deliver sensitive messages like that.
‘I will tell you this,’ said an irritated press secretary, ‘the president is the best communicator that we have at the White House.’
For now, the White House remains under intense pressure to explain why it allowed a Chinese spy balloon to traverse the breadth of the country, traveling over sensitive locations such as nuclear missile silos, before taking action.
And why since then it has scrambled fighter jets at the first sign of odd radar signals to obliterate unknown objects that could yet turn out to be weather balloons.
Repeated briefings have failed to yield key answers.
Earlier John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, told reporters that the United States still had no firm grasp on the origin of the other three objects.
‘We know of no entity or individual coming forward to claim that they are responsible or that they own any of these objects,’ he said.
‘But as I said, one thing we have to consider, and we believe the intelligence community is considering as an explanation, is that these could be tied to, as they say, commercial or research entities and therefore totally benign.’
Analysis has been hampered, he said, by the difficulty in recovering debris from hard-to-reach areas — two in the frozen north and one in Lake Huron.
And he said there was no indication that the trio of objects were tied to China’s spy balloon program.
A U.S. fighter jet on February 4 shot down a high-altitude Chinese balloon off the coast of South Carolina.
It had spent a week traversing the United States and Canada. China insists it is not a spy vessel.
Since then, jets have been scrambled three more times to intercept unidentified intruders.
The result is a deepening diplomatic crisis, as Beijing and Washington trade barbs.
The U.S. has imposed sanctions on six Chinese entities it says are tied to the balloon, an action which drew criticism from Beijing on Tuesday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a trip to China amid the furor, although reports suggest he could now meet Beijing’s top diplomat during the Munich Security Conference.
SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk
