Thursday’s White House press briefing featured longtime Democratic national security flack John Kirby for what’ll likely be one of his final times at the podium and he had quite the task to insist the Biden administration rejects that a hostile foreign actor or UFOs are behind the drones harassing residents in New Jersey, New York, and now surrounding states, but they still have no clue who’s behind them. Thankfully, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich wasn’t amused by his dodges.
Like her colleague Peter Doocy, Heinrich kept it basic to start out:
JACQUI TIME: “On the drones, does the U.S. government have any of its own imagery or video of these systems?”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 12, 2024
WH’s John Kirby: “I'm not aware that we have U.S. government — uh — produced — uh — imagery ourselves, but as I said in my opening statement, we have certainly done… pic.twitter.com/IF35XATl7B
In the above video, her first follow-up cut to the chase of the insanity: “Basically, with what you’re looking at, how can you credibly tell people that there is no public safety threat, there’s no national security threat that there’s no reason to believe that a foreign government is involved?”
Kirby maintained “[t]here’s a lot more work to be done and we’re working closely with state and local authorities to gain more information,” but nothing has indicated “any national security or malicious intent or criminal activity.”
Heinrich wasn’t amused, telling Kirby that Democrats representing the affected areas have told members of their own party that, in Heinrich’s words, this hasn’t “been handled with a sense of urgency” and wondered if there’s been any warnings to relevant military sites.
When Kirby also ducked this and said there hadn’t been, Heinrich fact-checked him: “
They said in fact that they’ve been observed maneuvering their critical infrastructure, sensitive locations including reservoirs and military installations and cited concern from law enforcement about public safety threats because a Medevac helicopter was prevented from transporting a seriously injured patient for care because of the presence of these drones....Can you make that make more sense? Because I think people in New York and New Jersey see drones the size of an SUV over their house every night and think that that doesn’t make any sense.
Eventually, Kirby’s dithering gave way to a follow-up from NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell:
NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell: “Picking up on — on drones, has it reached a level or is there a level determined by which the President or the administration more directly would prohibit any use of the airspace since it is regulated for drones for a period of time to try to figure out… pic.twitter.com/WuVaMWRTDn
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 12, 2024
The briefing had lame questions from the left, such as this from Bloomberg’s Akayla Gardner about President-Elect Trump appointing Kari Lake to run the Voice of America:
Bloomberg reporter Akayla Gardner: “I guess react generally to the fact that, you know, this is a nonpartisan agency and Kari Lake is someone who just ran the Senate campaign. Just any reaction to the fact that —”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 12, 2024
WH’s John Kirby: “I’m just not gonna get into casting judgments… pic.twitter.com/yb5A4Q1sVL
Always a good bet to press from the left, Reuters’s Andrea Shalal expressed concern about the lack of a report on what had been dubbed a “national strategy” to fight Islamophobia (click “expand”):
SHALAL: You have been working on an Islamophobia — or an — a strategy to counter Islamophobia that would partner with the strategy that you’ve already released to countering antisemitism. We’ve been waiting for it for a long time. Do you have any further updates on when that could be released? Do you anticipate it coming before the end of the year?
JEAN-PIERRE: I would say: Stay tuned. This is obviously something that we’re very committed to when it comes to protecting communities across this country. You saw that in our antisemitism strategy, and obviously we’ve been talking about this Islamophobia strategy as well — or talking about coming up with a way forward in protecting communities. Certainly, that’s the President’s commitment. I don’t have anything to share right now at this moment, at the — at this podium, behind this lectern, but I would say: Stay tuned.
SHALAL: Given — given the former President’s ban on entry from — for people from Muslim-majority countries — also known as the Muslim ban — at the beginning of his term —
JEAN-PIERRE: Which — which we — you know, which we repealed and dealt with that very early on.
SHALAL: No, I understand.
JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah.
SHALAL: But there were — you know, there were many, many people on no-fly lists. And there still are some people on no-fly lists. You know, do you — is there any preemptive action that the administration can take to guard against that kind of, you know, mass move again this time?
JEAN-PIERRE: Well, you know where the President stands on this in this administration. I don’t have any policy announcement to share with you at this time and so, I’ll just leave it there.
And, near the tail end of the hour-plus briefing, The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey wondered about a possible pardon for the President’s brother, Jim Biden:
WSJ’s Annie Linskey: “You had been asked several times about whether Hunter Biden would receive a pardon and responded to that question.”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 12, 2024
KJP: “Yeah.”
Linksey: “In that vein, can you tell me whether the President is considering a pardon for his son [sic], James Biden?”
KJP:… pic.twitter.com/lYXzYDTLgL
To see the relevant transcript form the December 12 briefing (including a series of questions from CNN’s Kayla Tausche about a former Biden official ripping the way the Hunter Biden pardon was handled), click here.
