02/13/23: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre

hello hi bless you and good afternoon okay just have one thing at the top to get us started uh President Biden has made clear that the United States is prepared to provide any and all types of Aid to the people of turkey and Syria in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis there and we continue to take steps to do so I'm sure you all saw during the Super Bowl to during the Super Bowl yesterday to donate to earthquake relief efforts and I want to point out some resources just for that there's a page on USA AIDS has a list where they have a list of vetted organization responding to this crisis should individuals want to contribute you can find that at cidi.org in Turkey our Urban search and rescue teams continue their efforts assisting in live rescues over the weekend we also continue to support the Turkish teams on the ground U.S military helicopters are providing critical lift for U.S and international responders our teams also continue to conduct structural damage assessments of buildings with the hope of being able to clear as many as possible today they have assessed more than 5 500 buildings allowing thousands of people who are currently displaced to be able to return home in Syria cross-border age shipments have increased yesterday a fourth U.N Convoy of 10 trucks from a U.S supported humanitarian partner successfully crossed into Syria from turkey that brings the total to 52 U.N trucks but more needs to be done it's critical for the security Council to authorize two additional Crossings to help deliver life-saving assistance we cannot delay any longer again I want to emphasize that any U.S or International sanctions include exemptions for humanitarian medical food and other Aid and one last thing before I turn it over to the Admiral I just wanted to make sure we addressed this from the White House I know there have been questions and and concerns about this but there is no again no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns again there is no indication of aliens or terrestrial activity with these recent takedowns wanted to make sure that the American people knew that all of you knew that and it was important for us to say that from here because we've been hearing a lot about it um I I'm not I'm just you know I loved E.T the movie but I'm just gonna leave it there um with that with all seriousness I know there's a lot of questions about the flying objects at Admiral John Kirby is here with us today and he's going to have a Topper a couple things to say at the top about it and then take your questions okay thanks for clearing that up makes my job easy I do have uh quite a few comments here at the top so I do uh hope that you'll just uh bear with me and then be happy to take whatever questions you uh you might have so I'd like to begin today by updating you on our efforts to recover the debris of several objects that the United States Air Force shot down over the last few days as well as that of the Spy balloon belonging to the People's Republic of China and I'd like to put into some context for you how we have worked and are still working to better understand the issue of high altitude low speed craft now let me start with a Chinese program when President Biden came into office he directed the U.S intelligence Community to do a broad assessment of Chinese intelligence capabilities and to assure and to ensure that we were working to detect and to protect against them I think for reasons that you will all understand we cannot publicly go into many details about how we discover and counteract foreign intelligence collection efforts because much of what we have done and are doing is of course sensitive but we were able to determine that China has a high altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that's connected to the people's Liberation Army it was operating during the previous administration but they did not detect it we detected it we tracked it and we have been carefully studying it to learn as much as we can we know that these PRC surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of countries on multiple continents around the world including some of our closest allies and partners we assessed that at this time these balloons have provided limited additive capabilities to the prc's other intelligence platforms used over the United States but in the future if the PRC continues to advance this technology it certainly could become more valuable to them the President also instructed the intelligence Community to take a broad look at the phenomenon of unidentified aerial objects indeed President Biden conducted the first ever daily intelligence briefing session devoted to this phenomenon back in June of 2021 he was briefed that this is not just an issue for the United States but one for the rest of the world and as I said our friends and our partners are dealing with this as well we worked on a bipartisan basis to stand up an office at the Pentagon to study this in partnership with the intelligence Community academic institutions and the private sector these unidentified aerial phenomena have been reported for many years without explanation or deep examination by the government President Biden has changed all that we are finally trying to understand them better now in light of the Chinese balloon program and this recent incursion into our airspace the United States and Canada through NORAD have been more closely scrutinizing that airspace including enhancing our radar capabilities which as the commander of North com and NORAD General van hurk said just last night May at least partially explain the increase in the objects that have been detected slow moving objects at high altitude with a small radar cross section are difficult to detect on radar even objects the size of a the Chinese spy balloon which had a payload the size of roughly three school buses were not picked up by previous administrations or other countries we also know that a range of entities including countries companies research and academic organizations operate objects at these altitudes for purposes that are not nefarious at all including scientific research that said because we have not yet been able to definitely definitively assess what these most recent objects are we acted out of an abundance of caution to protect the security our security our interest and flight safety in Saturday's case we acted in consultation with the Canadian government the president speaking personally with prime minister Trudeau the Spy balloon was of course different because we knew precisely where that was as we have said we do not assess that these most recent objects posed any direct threat to people on the ground and we are laser focused on confirming their nature and purpose including through intensive efforts to collect debris in the remote locations where they have fallen in each instance we have followed the same basic course we assessed whether they posed any kinetic threat to people on the ground they did not we assessed whether they were sending any communication signals we detected none we looked to see whether they were maneuvering or had any propulsion capabilities we saw no signs of that and we made sure to determine whether or not they were manned they were not we did however assess that their altitudes were considerably lower than the Chinese high altitude balloon and did pose a threat to civilian commercial air traffic and while we have no specific reason to suspect that they were conducting surveillance of any kind we couldn't rule that out that is why the president at the recommendation of Secret of the Secretary of Defense the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the north North com NORAD Commander gave the order to shoot them down these missions were completed successfully and safely efforts are actively underway right now at all Sites to find what is left of those objects so that we can better understand and communicate with the American people what they are I think it's important to remind the objects in Alaska and Canada are in pre-remote Terrain ice and Wilderness all of that making it difficult to find them in winter weather the object over Lake Huron Now lies in what is probably very deep water so outside of recovery operations what are we doing well first We are continuing to monitor there are no active tracks today but the professionals at NORAD will continue to do their important work secondly we are Consulting with allies and partners on the challenge of identified aerial phenomenon and how we can all work together to deal with that challenge the president has directed the secretary of state Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence to engage with their relevant counterparts to share information and to try to gain their perspectives as well again this is an issue that affects everybody around the world third we will continue to brief members of Congress and relevant State leadership on what we are doing and what we learn president has made this a very top priority we have over the course of just the last few days and certainly over the course of last week reached out to inform and brief members of Congress and relevant State governors of the operations that we were conducting and other recovery operations that are underway we've also kept Congress briefed generally on this issue of Chinese surveillance balloons including classified briefings last August and last week Administration officials provided classified briefings for all senators and all members of the House of Representatives on the PRC surveillance balloon we fully expect and anticipate and support the ability to continue these briefings in the days ahead and fourth the president through his National Security adviser has today directed an interagency team to study the broader policy implications for detection analysis and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks every element of the government will redouble their efforts to understand and mitigate these events and I'm happy to take some questions um John if the objects don't pose a military threat and they don't pose a threat to anybody on the ground why shoot them down particularly because the military has uh is routinely monitoring radar you know radar Clips I kind of covered that in the opening statement um two real reasons here first there was a very real potential risk to civilian air traffic we once shut down on Saturday I'm sorry yesterday was about 20 000 feet and the two shot down Friday and Saturday were at about 40 000 feet and as you know transcontinental air traffic is roughly around 30 000 feet it depends of course on on weather and so because we assessed that they weren't manned and weren't being controlled therefore left to atmospheric conditions um the the real risk to safety of flight was was a problem the second purpose and I talked about this earlier too was even though we had no indications that any of these three objects were surveilling we couldn't rule that out and so there you know you want to err on the side of safety here in terms of protecting our national security interests and the fact that these objects uh could have and uh and likely did at some point in their path uh Transit over you know potential military sites of ours or sensitive sites so again out of an abundance of caution for those two reasons the president with the recommendation of his military leaders directed them to be taken down because it's so unprecedented um should the public be hearing from the president directly on this we have been I think as transparent as we can be I won't speak for the president's uh personal uh speaking schedule but I mean he has been deeply engaged in uh every one of these decisions he's been kept informed including as of this morning on what's going on with recovery efforts um and uh and he's very much staying on top of the issue and uh and directing his team to make sure we are properly Consulting and briefing not just members of Congress but State leaders as well and of course you know we're also doing what we can in the in the public sphere thank you John what is the president's standard going to be going forward about when he orders an unidentified object shot down it comes down to one simple formulation and that's if at the recommendation of his military leaders he believes that the Safety and Security of the United States that the Safety and Security of the American people is prime responsibility warrant that kind of a decision so it's possible we could see these shoot Downs on a regular basis like we saw over the weekend I don't think it's useful for me to get ahead of where we are right now the president will always side on preserving and protecting the Safety and Security of the American people you said we're not flying any surveillance balloons over China are we flying any other kind of surveillance craft routinely over time we are not flying surveillance balloons over China I'm not aware of any other craft that we're flying over into Chinese airspace and then finally can you tell us anything object how big was it we're still trying to assess what what that was I'm not going to get into a description I've seen the Press reports about what what it looked like um I I think we all need to be humble here in in terms of what our ability is to positively identify stuff from fighter aircraft that are going several hundred miles an hour past essentially in terms of relative motion a stationary object that was not very big so we don't know what this exactly looked like and again we're still not sure exactly what what it what the purpose of it was or who owned it but we we hope to be able to find out more once we can recover debris from that one and from the other two as well um just a few minutes ago prime minister Trudeau said that there's some sort of pattern to the objects over the last few days is that something you can elaborate on what sort of pattern the White House has seen I'm not familiar with the prime minister's comments so I I don't know if I uh if I should take a swing at that I would just tell you that going back to what I said before these objects were not being maneuvered they did not appear to have any self-propulsion so the likely hypothesis is that they were being moved by the prevailing winds and maybe perhaps that's what the prime minister is talking about I don't want to speak for him but certainly um as the prevailing winds particularly at that altitude go west to east across the North American airspace I mean there was a general common movement in in that regard and you spoke at the top about kind of reassessing radar given what happened with with the initial balloon can you give us a sense can we expect uh should we assume that this is the the regular number of these objects over the United States that they've always been there and they just haven't been um looked at the same way or is there any reason to expect that this is this is more than usual that are flying so two thoughts there I mean I I think um I think we can all get our heads around the fact that um that there are sometimes uh things floating at high altitudes for various purposes as I said scientific research weather weather balloons uh all manner of uh of uh of innocuous craft uh can can be Aloft at high altitudes I don't think that that's necessarily unusual here it's difficult for for me to say exactly what you can expect going forward one of the reasons that we think we're seeing more is because we're looking for more as you heard uh General van hurt mentioned last night they have they have modified the filters and the gains as we call it of the of the the radar capabilities to look more discreetly at high altitude small radar cross section and low speed objects and so if you do that and anybody that's operated a radar will know you can set you can set the parameters and if you set the parameters in such a way that to look for a certain something it's more likely that you're going to find a certain something and given all you've discussed during the action of the administration is taking and what people have learned Chinese five alone this year and previous years these unidentified objects that we shoot down they might have a question when it comes to these higher altitudes our America's borders secure president takes as I said earlier he takes our national security uh extremely seriously he has no higher responsibility than the Safety and Security of the American people and I don't think you need to look any further quite frankly than the decisions he's made in just the last week to 10 days to evidence that but it feels like he's plugging holes like these are vulnerabilities that we are discovering in real time you're making an assumption there that I don't know that the I don't know that the analysis will actually Bear out thank you very much the president gave the order to shoot down the average over Lake Huron yesterday where was he what kind of information did he have when he gave that order what was brief to him and and how did he anticipate the outcome of that he was here in the white house he was kept constantly informed by uh by his National Security team and certainly by the military um uh he made that decision I don't couldn't give you the exact time on the clock but it was uh I believe uh mid to late morning um and uh and then it was executed in the in the afternoon where they're continuing season place in case there was a reaction from a foreign government in reaction to shooting that object down yesterday the one yesterday yeah well it was shot over I mean it was shot over Lake Huron and landed in what we believe to be the Canadian side of the lake um so we were obviously in constant communication and consultation with our Canadian counterparts and they are rightly because of where we think it's splashed down I mean they're sort of the in concert with the U.S Coast Guard but they are also involved in in trying to locate the debris right now but there was good communication with our Canadian allies signs of a foreign government taking a special interest in that object from yesterday and reacting in an unusual way no two questions one you mentioned early on that um this the the China uh balloon might have been giving limited additive capabilities I assume you're um meeting onto their satellite surveillance can you specify what I mean what exactly it's getting from a balloon that they're not getting from Orphan orbiting satellites that gold rush like dozens with the caveat that we haven't fully recovered everything though we have recovered some things from the bottom of the uh of the Atlantic um and we're analyzing that but with that caveat that we don't know exactly uh what this uh balloon uh was surveilling or what its capabilities were so just in general and I that is an important caveat that I'd like you to remember um when you are at a lower altitude then space you could perhaps get a better Fidelity of of imagery for instance of things on the ground when you are not moving at the speed of a satellite and therefore you know only getting seconds over a a site when you can maneuver Left Right Slow Down Speed up like this thing could then you can loiter if you can loiter you can soak in a little bit more you can spend more time over a sensitive site some of their satellites are in geostationary orbit I mean they're just sitting there Gathering signals intelligence right so uh what is the benefit I mean is it just to see what kind of fidelity we're going to learn more I'd rather not go into any more detail than that right now we're going to learn more um and frankly I think that's a terrific question you should be asking Beijing and that's one of the um you said that uh before the other object shot down we're not able to transmit or we're not transmitting signals that they did not have any propulsion that the China balloon did that have any um was it emitting signals back I'm not going to go into more detail about the capabilities of that we are going to be studying it and analyzing it there is no question in our minds that that system was designed to surveil that that was an intelligence asset I'll leave it there has there been any Outreach from anywhere in the administration to the kinds of companies that produce weather balloons or other craft that would fit these descriptions that might be from the commercial or corporate world to say is this yours or any kind of Outreach or have you been hearing from anyone who might say we have ours they're in this area is any of that going on now I don't know of any conversations right now uh Kelly but one of the reasons why the president directed Mr Sullivan to put together an interagency effort is to take a long look at that and try to learn a little bit better about who is up at that altitude doing what uh for a completely legitimate purposes I think we we all recognize we need to probably have a better side picture on that and that's why the president wants the center agency effort to take a look and what kind of intelligence might be happening in terms of the diplomacy that's going on or whatever if these are state-owned objects I'm not sure I understand what you mean is there is there a network of conversations that might be happening where someone might be able to say based on this octagonal description that hey that sounds like the so-and-so I mean is there some conversations that are happening that might be able to give us some descriptions I mean the short answer to your question is yes and I talked about that in my opening statement the President also directed secretary blank and secretary Austin uh director Haynes uh to have these kinds of conversations with our allies and partners around the world to share with them what we're learning but also to see get that get their perspectives we're quick to say it's ours but it was for commercial purposes yeah again we're going to have those kinds of conversations with our allies and partners to see what kind of experiences that they have had what uh what we can learn from from them what perhaps they can learn from us deal with object or can we call them balloons stool object I won't mess that up today on the corporate angle is there any expectation that this is going to affect the the executive order on surveilling the US companies and what they're doing in China and the their I know exactly okay and then um is there and just you said a moment ago that there's no knowledge of a U.S balloon or other craft over Chinese territory just being cognizant of the fact that China has a different definition of what their territory is than the United States is there any U.S surveillance aircraft over Taiwan over uh the South China Sea that that would would fit into that there is no U.S surveillance aircraft uh over Chinese in Chinese airspace even Chinese claimed airspace there's no U.S surveillance aircraft and Chinese airspace and then just finally is there any um new formal approach that's being developed as far as how you're going to deal with these things on a systematic basis going forward is there well again again that's what that's exactly what the the president wants Mr Sullivan to run as a process an interagency process to help us as I said in my opening statement get around the policy implications here and whether and whether or not there needs to be any uh policy changes going forward um there's no precedent for us Fighters taking down objects over U.S territories as far as I'm aware of I guess my question is you talked about the The Tweak in the radar systems yes there have been a tweak in the threshold for uh the pentagon's uh presenting to the president president signing off on military action related to anything over our airspace not sure I'm following the Chinese is yeah The Radars were tweaked which is why you think you're seeing some of these things right has the decision about or has a threshold for the use of Fighters to take down objects also the tweaked has it been lowered has it been changed we've never seen this before all of a sudden we've seen no actually I'm sorry I didn't understand it at first no I mean and you heard General van hurt talk about this last night and he's using established protocols um to engage um the crafting in the air aircraft in the air that can be legitimately brought down and as he said last night the best way to do that certainly in a timely and efficient effective way was through fighter aircraft and through the Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and they looked at and he talked about this they looked at other options to try to bring them down to include gunfire but that would have presented a greater risk to the pilots themselves so this was the safest most effective way to do that now where we go from here I think we just don't know right now in terms of whether there needs to be threshold changes as you put out I think it's important to just take a step back here and and remember what the president did was ordered these actions with the Safety and Security of the American people foremost in his mind um and there were there were very good reasons to do it um the military then once given an order determines how they're going to execute that order and general van Hart decided that the best way to do this was with Sidewinder missiles and fighter aircraft point on it but this isn't reactive to the Chinese Five Below in the sense that there was political pressure and so we are going to act quickly to take down any objects over our airspace because the pressure that came from this was this was these were decisions based uh purely and simply on what was in the best interest of the American people welcome screen thanks John um John does the US government have video or imagery of these latest intercepts and will you guys be releasing it you'd have to talk to DOD about that Jackie I I I don't know what kind of imagery might exist and uh and they'd be one to talk about whether they're releasable or not um obviously certainly with respect to the Spy balloon the um we want to make sure that we are gleaning what we can from this imagery so that we can answer your questions better um and so to what degree there is or will it will or not be public release I do want to stress that you know we're going to want to make sure that we have had a chance to analyze that imagery uh for ourselves as much as possible Phil's question and I guess what we're trying to discern as you said earlier you know we're looking for these more so we're finding more and I said that could be one reason why we're finding one one reason but what we're getting at is you know why are we all of a sudden shooting them down and to add to that you know the NORAD Commander for instance said that uh when the first spy balloon was crossing over Americans and Canadian airspace one of the reasons that he couldn't take action was because his assessment was that it didn't pose a military threat or have hostile intent and so he couldn't take action there it seems like maybe that protocol has changed or has his ability to make that call where there is not an imminent threat militarily or physically might have changed so can you explain to us what change why are we shooting them down all of a sudden I kind of feel like I took care of that in my opening statement but I'm happy to revisit it I mean really two reasons here and these are in certainly in well in both cases they're different I think we need to separate the Chinese Bible and we knew what it was we knew where it was going we knew what he was trying to do and by not taking it down I mean it was also a huge payload like I said the size of three school buses so really the option of shooting that down over land wasn't the legitimate option because somebody really could have gotten hurt and we used the the time available to us knowing what this thing was all about we used that time to study it to learn from it to collect on it then taking it down at the earliest opportunity in the water and we have retrieved some of that debris off the bottom and we're studying that hang on a second I'll be right there um but so let's separate that from these other three and these other three what are some of the differences altitude's a big difference let me get through this and then altitude's different the Chinese spy balloon was at sixty thousand plus well outside commercial air traffic concerns these three were right on the border of it so there was a legitimate concern there Chinese by balloon we knew exactly what that thing was and we knew what it was trying to do and we saw it Jackie as it slowed down sped up maneuvered a little bit trying to get a look at what we believe to be sent to military sites these other three they didn't have propulsion they weren't being maneuvered it was basically they've been being driven uh by the by the wind we don't think we don't we don't know for sure whether they had a surveillance aspect to them but we can't rule it out so there was a little bit there was enough uncertainty there uh that again out of an abundance of caution doing The Prudent thing the president directed that they get taken down and I I get where you're going is this the standard going forward and we're gonna we're gonna dive into this we're going to learn from these three events um we're going to continue to study what happened we're gonna have an interagency effort that helps us get around the policy implications here and we'll see where this goes but bottom line for President Biden is you got to do the right thing for the American people for our Safety and Security strange that no one's claimed these yet as theirs uh I I can't say whether that's strange or not since we're sort of in Uncharted Territory here no pun intended but we don't you know we don't we don't know and I suspect that that go ahead I'm I'm basically done I'm basically done sir what's your name sir oh from CBS okay um has the payload been recovered from South Carolina yet the called payload that's yeah as I said some of the debris certainly uh they were able to take things off the surface like the next day actually that afternoon uh some of the balloon uh fabric um and in the days since they have been able to recover some not all uh of the payload that sank to the bottom of the Atlantic it's about 45 feet of water weather conditions are pretty tough off the coast right now like today for instance they have not been able to get into the water and dive on it but over the course of the weekend they were able to raise some of the debris including uh some of the electronics and uh and some of the structure the expectation of when all that payload is going to be collected I don't I wish if I if I could tell you that I'd be a very wealthy man I mean it's gonna it could take it could take a long time uh given uh see the sea State and weather conditions and the degree to which we have to protect the safety of the divers one last question you said you were unsure the surveillance capabilities of these latest objects um last week we were told several times that every precaution was taken to ensure that the sensitive installations were covered we don't know exactly what you all did but has there been up nor are you gonna find out well it hasn't been a posture change Nationwide regarding all of these sensitive uh sites if you're proactively if you're um let me just put a fork in this if this if the implication is that you know uh there's some sort of blanket now security policy for every base on the continental United States the answer is no we do have protocols particularly when we we know that um surveillance is going to occur like in the open Skies tree with Russia for instance uh when all that's scheduled and laid out and when you know that there's going to be an open Skies flight by uh by by Russia you take the appropriate actions and that's what we did in the case of the Chinese by balloon and we'll always do that I will never talk about what precautions we're going to make at any given base at any given time but we always do what we need to do to protect our nation's secrets I I won't talk about it any more than that okay thank you very much okay Admiral um you started the briefing by talking about the president's involvement in this the report from uh Odie and I recently that that goes over this in that odni report about unidentified aerial phenomena it says there were 247 unidentified aerial phenomenon reports since March of 2021. some of which have quote demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities so can you say why the president just recently within the last couple weeks started ordering some of these objects to be shot down and why there weren't any orders throughout 2021 or throughout 2022. it's very it's very simple it comes down to what sort of Safety and Security threats and risk we're talking about um and uh and also uh it comes down to a lot to our ability to to track to track detect and engage having come from the Pentagon I can tell you that some of these uaps while we may not be able to know what each and every one is doing some of the big concern there was that um a lot not many of those reports were happening around our training ranges were happening around air training ranges so combat Pilots were seeing these things and it was and there was a potential impact to the safety of flight of our Pilots but you may not have but a fleeting moment on some of these things to to see it and so it's different in these cases um we had time to detect time to analyze time to engage time to make those kinds of decisions but it all comes down to Safety and Security first and foremost the time though is a matter of capability you have better capabilities now than we did we are certainly improving our capabilities now and and as I said the president has directed The National Security team uh to dig into this deeper from an interagency effort and to see what uh if other uh improvements might need to make I mean look just by adapting the way the radar parameters are set we have improved our ability to detect and again I said that could be one reason why we're seeing more um so you said that the debris found on Frozen Waters or in remote areas and these are also like huge objects and they were shot down by Nissan so how optimistic are you that you will be able to collect enough debris to really get an idea of what these objects were we won't know until we get on site to see um you know how much damage was done not just by the missile strike but by the fall from from a very high altitude and as you said in one case on sea ice um so we'll just have to see jump yeah uh thank you John the Secretary of State Lincoln plan to meet with this Chinese counterpart this week at the Munich security conference I'm referring to the state department for the secretary's schedule I I don't have visibility on that okay and um have you been able to what have you been able to learn more uh or not you but the government since these uh objects were shot down I mean you you just alluded to the fact that uh that you've not been able to get on site yet I mean has there been any additional information since one was shot down Friday and then over the weekend because these are just happened over the last few days and we haven't found the debris um there's uh there's still a lot more we expect to be able to learn and I think once we can get to the debris and I'm not forecasting how easy that's going to be they all three have fallen uh into some pretty remote uh difficult areas to reach but we're going to do everything we can to find them and that will tell us a lot since we have since I know you didn't ask about this but in the case of the Chinese spy balloon we have been able to recover some debris and some of the electronics and even some of the structure from the bottom of the Atlantic and that will also tell us a lot and we are uh we're learning from it right now everybody [Music] as much debris as you can get from all the sites I'm sorry when do we think when do you think you'll be satisfied that you've gotten as much debris as you can from all the sites I wish I could give you a date certain on the calendar I can't do that we're gonna we're we're working to surveil him right now in fact you know there's a an avp3 that's flying over the site in Alaska the Canadians are in charge obviously of the one in the Yukon and now the Coast Guard is in the Lake Huron working with the Canadian Coast Guard to do the same thing uh there so we're working this as hard as we can and we will keep you informed as we learn more as I'm doing today divers in the water over the weekend we have recovered debris off the coast of uh of South Carolina we'll keep you informed will you brief Congress this week there have been uh briefings as early as late last week and we do fully expect that there will be additional briefings this week perhaps even perhaps even later today have been very harsh they said the first balloon was an accident in the last three objects were not there is having responded that has the White House had conversations with Beijing about this and can you share a little bit about that we know the first one was Chinese they admitted it they claimed it was a weather balloon we know it's not these three we don't have attribution for right now we don't know we we don't know who owns them so I'm not going to take anybody's word at face value here until we can get a chance to to take a look at them are we in touch with the Chinese um we have we have an embassy in Beijing we maintain routine diplomatic conversations and we have had uh in over that spy balloon incident we did have uh private discussions with senior Chinese leaders okay thanks I knew you just said that are you in touch with the Chinese is there any effort to arrange a call with President XI at all I'm not aware of any plans for that if I could just ask a question on Israel does the president plan to speak with PM Netanyahu about the moves his government is making to try to weaken the Israel I have no calls or conversations to read out um uh but we are deeply concerned by some of the moves here with respect to settlements um I just recently has said that there was a Russian plot to sort of overthrow her government and break moldova's path to Europe it was something that President zielinski himself had also warned about what is the U.S assessment of this possible a plot and more broadly what is the concern about Russia's attempts to sort of influence these these pro-european governments in the region even though it's right now focused on Ukraine about other countries in the region so um what I'll say about that is uh deeply concerning reports certainly not outside the bounds of Russian behavior and we absolutely stand with the moldum moldovan government and uh the moldovan people you have no information from the U.S side of Intel I know no independent confirmation but we're certainly not questioning the capacity the will of the of the Russians of Mr Putin to try to do that is perfectly right a page I ran out of his Playbook yes I I was going to ask you a question just one quick question that these are lighter than air or heavier than air we have not okay but we have to to everyone okay you already had a question go ahead um all three shoot Downs in the US occurred offshore but the one in Canada occurred over land so is it effective U.S policy to not shoot down these objects over land for safety concerns I wouldn't read it into this some kind of policy decision we will always in deciding whether something should be taken down or not consider the impact on the ground when the Chinese uh Pavilion came down the Chinese foreign Ministry indicated they would respond in a way that they were prepared to if it turns out that the other objects are also Chinese and origin is the is there a menu of options prepared for the president for how we would react terrific hypothetical we're just not there yet okay yeah so I realized a relationship issue you have a the Chinese spy Airship that went through you've got China buying more oil from Russia you've got China uh you know opening up cases in the U.S trying to steal U.S technology from universities another president XI is going to be meeting with the Iranian president at what point do you review a big review of the U.S relationship with China and at one point does the president ask for a call from president XI again I don't have a call to talk about today let me just again level said here and I know I'm running close on time but uh sorry but the president met with President XI at Bali at the G20 the whole purpose of that discussion was to move this relationship forward in a better way most consequential bilateral relationship in the world the president knows that and he wanted to move that relationship forward in a better way and secretary blinken was dang near wheels up trying to head to Beijing to have those kinds of conversations to get some of these communication vehicles and venues back on track whether it's climate change or military to military we were willing to do that we were looking forward to doing that and then the Chinese decided to fly a surveillance balloon over the continental United States and it wouldn't be inappropriate to have that meeting when when are those discussions going to get back on the calendar I couldn't tell you as you as secretary blinken has said it'll happen at the at the appropriate time now is not that time it doesn't mean and people shouldn't take away from this that all communication has been severed between the United States and China that Beijing and Washington aren't talking we still have an embassy there we still have an ability through secretary blinken's good offices to communicate with senior Chinese leaders unfortunately the Chinese military is not interested in talking to secretary uh Secretary of Defense Austin but but there are still ways to to communicate and the president would tell you that now's exactly the time to at least preserve some of those lines of communication so that we can avoid miscalculation set back the relationship let's learn has this all this list of things set back the relationship it is certainly not helped us move forward in the way that we want it to move right last question in the back and that's gonna be the last question no sir right here James okay oh thank you last Friday you answered uh my question about President Biden's message during his trip to Poland but I'm wondering why he specifically chosen Poland for this trip since so many countries are helping Ukraine and he visited Poland 11 months ago the president's really looking forward to this trip um certainly not lost I'm sure on any of you that it's timed around what sadly is going to be a year of war in Ukraine um Poland has been a strident Ally a tremendous supporter of of Ukraine and a generous host not only to American troops but millions of Ukrainian refugees who have fled there in safety um the the polls are pardoned upon but they're punching well above their weight and and uh and we very much appreciate all the support president wants to thank president Duda in person he wants to thank the Polish people in person he wants to make broader points about how it's important for the kind of courage and unity we're seeing out of Poland and so many NATO allies continues sadly into what will now be a second year of War thank you Karine and uh thank you Admiral naturally I have two questions one on the um unexplained aerial phenomenal uh and the second will be on the Russian Ukraine war um my understanding is that uh the top officials of the Pentagon when asked explicitly if uh they were ruling out any kind of extraterrestrial presence said they weren't ruling anything out and yet at the beginning of today's briefing albeit with her usual winning smile uh Ms Jean-Pierre seemed to rule out any extraterrestrial activity I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft period I don't think there's any more that needs to be said there on the Russia Ukraine war as we approached the anniversary in the days immediately after the commencement of the conflict we heard from senior U.S officials such as the CIA director in the Congressional testimony that President Putin had been observed by U.S officials to have constricted his decision-making Circle during the pandemic that he was making erratic decisions and these were seen to have played out in in what happened on the battlefield as we approach this year anniversary what do we observe about President Putin's decision making now the caliber of his decision making and also his grip on power in his own country has any of that changed over the course of the year I can't speak to the way Mr Putin gets advised and how he you know who's advising him and what they're saying I I couldn't begin to get inside uh Kremlin decision-making process he's clearly Mr Putin is not making good decisions shouldn't have invaded in the first place this is a country that posed no threat to anybody let alone Russia clearly he hasn't made sound decisions nor has his military with respect to their performance on the battlefield they're still suffering some of the same problems they were a year ago Logistics sustainment integration of joint fires uh Manpower Personnel unit cohesion I could go on and on the Russian military is still struggling they they have not surmounted these these problems and is borne out by the fact that you know he continues to change generals the way I change socks so I mean he's he's still struggling yeah that's right guys we have to end the briefing um I gotta go into the oval but um I will see you tomorrow and thank you for the compliment on the smile I appreciate that but I'll be well I'll be back tomorrow thanks everybody have a great day

Channel: The White House

Views: 88,229

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Id: 3GQmzVDJIL8

Length: 48min 47sec (2927 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 13 2023