Beginning her press conference on Tuesday, January 28, Trump Administration White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement from President Donald Trump in which she explained what had been going on with the drones in New Jersey, saying that they had been authorized by the FAA and were fulfilling a variety of purposes.
As background, the end of Biden’s Presidency was marked by, amongst other things, concern over the consistent spotting of drones over the skies of New Jersey. Many initially worried that the drones were controlled by foreign entities or domestic bad actors, and the Biden Administration provided few details about what was going on.
For example, at one point in mid-December, then-White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said only that the drones were being investigated, telling reporters, “So, we are certainly aware. The president is aware, so we are closely tracking the activity and coordinating closely with relevant agencies, including DHS and FBI, to continue to investigate these incidents.”
She added that the drones were being tracked very closely, a bizarre statement if the drones were all approved by the FAA, as it appears they were. She said, “Obviously, this is something the DHS and FBI are tracking very, very closely.” She did, however, confirm that the drones were not foreign.
In any case, Leavitt, commenting on the drone matter in the introductory part of her press briefing, introduced it by saying, “And before I turn to questions, I do have news directly from the president of the United States that was just shared with me in the Oval Office from President Trump directly — an update on the New Jersey drones.”
Continuing, she explained what the drones were and what was going on with them, which was mainly that they were being flown around by hobbyists and researchers and had been approved by the FAA, which is wild considering that the Biden Administration seemingly couldn’t figure out what was going on. She said, “After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons.”
She then explained that many of the drones were recreational, and that the number of drones increased as curiosity about them rose, with those new ones being also generally controlled by hobbyists. She said, “Many of these drones were also hobbyists — recreational and private individuals that enjoy flying drones. In meanti- — in the — in time, it got worse, due to curiosity.”
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Concluding, she reiterated her point that the drones were not foreign or enemy drones spying on American people or facilities, saying, “This was not the enemy.” She then again noted that the comments about the drones had been a statement from President Trump to kick off the press conference, saying, “A — a statement from the president of the United States to start this briefing with some news.” At that point the press conference moved on to questions from journalists.
Watch her here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video