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tv   Washington Journal Brett Samuels  CSPAN  February 15, 2023 1:54am-2:02am EST

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washington journal, your window into the nation's capital. >> gives the people and opportunity to speak for themselves on the issues that they actually care about. >> a variety of congressional members. >> c-span is one of the great institutions in this country where speech is sometimes unpopular. >> bringing a balanced discussion on all of the policy issues. no one else does that as well as c-span. >> white house reporter from the
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newspaper joining us. m. the story you put out, what we know and what we don't know about the latest objects shot down by the u.s. after that briefing at the white house yesterday. what do we know and what don't we know? guest: there is a lot we don't know. officials don't know and are not ready to share with the public. what we do know is there were three different objects shot down over the weekend, friday, saturday and sunday by the u.s. military. what we know is not much beyond that other than where they were shot down. on friday over alaska, saturday up in canada, and sunday over lake huron. officials are not really ready to classify or describe what these objects were. the are calling them aerial objects.
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the reasons they were shot down is because they were in civilian airspace around 20,000 to 40,000 feet. b, they decided they were unsure of the surveillance capabilities these objects might have. president biden went ahead and made the decision to shoot them down. we still don't know where they came from, what their purpose was. there is much to be learned in the days ahead as teams work to recover the debris. host: the first was described as a chinese spy balloon. these last three objects a little different. are we certain they are from china or is that the expectation? guest: we are unsure where they came from. officials have been careful not to assign china responsibility for these but it is possible that may end up being the case. john kirby, they white house spokesperson was talking
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about how the reality is there is nothing nefarious about these objects, acknowledging research institutions send out weather balloons and other objects for whatever reason. it is possible it may not be nefarious. given the chinese spy balloon that was shut down 10 days ago -- shot down 10 days ago people are on high alert. host: john kirby in the briefing room yesterday. he said the white house has been as transparent as we can. i wonder how that went over in the room with reporters and with members on capitol hill who have been calling for answers and transparency. guest: on the one hand from the press corps's perspective there is appreciation john kirby could
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speak to these issues and was sent there to answer questions about this. on the other hand, there's a lot of information folks just don't know about this. there is limited info he can share. i think there is even more skepticism on capitol hill where lawmakers are confounded about how this is happening, these objects are in our airspace, why they are being shot down all of a sudden, why there is talk of if it has happened before. there's a growing course from republicans in particular about whether president biden needs to speak to the nation to talk about why this is happening and whether there is any security threat. i think we will see that continue to fester in the next couple of days. calls for answers. there's an expectation the white house will brief lawmakers in the coming days.
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until we know more about where they came from and what they were doing there will be a frustration on capitol hill. host: do you get the sense president biden is closer to going and front of cameras about these objects? guest: i have been talking to folks at the white house and i think there is a sense perhaps at some point this week we would hear from the president on this issue. i think they want to be careful before we know too much about these objects. not have him speak just to have him speak. there's the possibility as we learn more and these outings are recovered there's a chance we could hear from the president at some point to address the public about these issues. host: what details about the classified briefing senators are taking part in this morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern before the
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senate comes in at 11:00 a.m.? guest: the administration is trying to be transparent, as john kirby said, give us much information as they can. they have talked about they have not been able to recover the debris from the objects shot down over the weekend because of the weather. up in alaska the ground is frozen. in the case of lake huron, it was down over water. -- downed overwater. water. it's an olive branch to show they want to be transparent and keep lawmakers in the loop as they learn about these objects. host: thank you for keeping us in the loop. brett samuels with the hill newspaper, white house reporter.
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