senate. there has been terrific bipartisan support through the entire years, think about what we have done over this year. all of it has been done in the full consultation and coordination with congress. no such thing as a blank check. we are all doing it together, and the support from congress has really been extraordinary and the president looks forward to that support continuing. >> thank you very much. is the president prepared to send u.s. fighter jets to ukraine? >> we talked about this, i think the president got asked this question and he spoke to it. i don't have anything to add to what the president said. we remain in constant communication with the ukrainians what their needs are, and the needs have evolved as the war has evolved. >> is the u.s. prepared to make the delivery of the mig 29s. >> we have never dictated to another partner what they can or

can't give or on what timeline. and if one of our allies and partners wants to provide fighter aircraft to president zelenskyy, that's a sovereign decision they have ever right to make we would welcome that. >> $100 million in the appropriations bill in july to train ukrainian pilots on u.s. aircraft. what's the status -- >> no training underway right now, there's no commitment by the united states to provide fighter aircraft. >> you don't have to have fighter aircraft. >> no p training right now on fighter pilots. >> president biden's trip to poland, can we expect any deliverables, like a new military package for ukraine or new framework of support for ukraine and another one you just mentioned at the beginning of this press briefing that there are 10,000 u.s. troops in poland. why is there no meeting with the

troops on president biden's schedule? >> the president routinely visits with the men and women of the military and their families, so does the first lady. you cannot look at a single set of remarks he gives, including yesterday, how he does not call out the troops and how prideful he is on them. this will be focused on events in warsaw. you never want to make it about you when you are up here, but as a veteran myself, i never worried ever when he was vice president or certainly as president about his concern for the welfare of the men and women in uniform and their families. not a single bit. >> what about the first question. >> i was trying to ignore the first question. i thought if i was eloquent on the second answer. we have been consistent in rolling out additional security assistance packages to ukraine on a fairly routine and regular basis and that will continue.

i'm not going to get ahead of the president's remarks. >> john, you have spoken with other allies -- >> i will say that i think you'll hear from the president in his speech continued tangible support for ukraine going forward. he will talk about the ways in which we will support going forward. >> balloon question, sighted over dozens of countries. >> 40 to 50. >> have you asked other countries to take actions against the balloons and increase or decrease in the sightings or activity -- >> no, these are sovereign decisions nations have to make. it was informing them of the forensics we did to learn more about the program and the ways in which their countries may have been overflown in the past.

>> and following up on mark's question, zelenskyy spoke and appealed to the west to provide more, bigger, heavier weapons, more quickly, because everyone fears the offensive that is expected. so what do you say to zelenskyy, what will harris say? >> you can't hardly blame him, can you. one year on, how many millions flown into refuge inside and outside the country, how many soldiers killed, how many towns and cities destroyed, how many hospitals and schools bombed. can't blame president zelenskyy for wanting more, heavier, faster. he's a commander in chief in a time of war, a war he did not ask for and certainly was no justification for it. and we understand that. we also understand the clock and we know that time is critical here. particularly the time in the wintertime now, when the

fighting is not quite as widespread across the country, vicious fighting in and around a city, i would like to talk about that in a second even though you did not ask about it. we are going to try to do what we can to use this time to get mr. zelenskyy as much as possible as fast as we can so that when the weather improves and we have to assume and expect the russians will want to go on the offense, it's possible along the arc from northeast to southwest they may want to renew their offensive operations, that he's ready for it and if he chooses to, he can go on the offense as well. you didn't ask about --

>> it seems to be run by the wagner group more than the russian ministry of defense. they have made incremental gains over the last few days and we certainly can't predict one way or the other. it is possible that they might end up being successful in bacmoot, it is no strategic value. the ukrainians will have strong lines across the donbas and fighting hard. i want to say about the wagner group, again, they are treating their recruits, largely convicts, as canon fodder, throwing them into a literal meat grinder here in human waves without a second thought. fighting in ukraine, we estimate that wagner has suffered more than 30,000 casualties, including approximately 9,000 killed in action. about half of those who were

killed, wagner folks, contractors killed, were killed since mid december. so, think about that. two and a half months, 9,000 killed. as the fighting has intensified. based on previous intelligence, we estimated that about 90% of those killed in the december fighting alone, just in december, were convicts. men that he just plucked out of prisons and threw on the battlefield with no training, no equipping, no organizational command, just throw them into the fight. 90% killed were convicts. we believe wagner relies heavily on the convicts and does not show signs of abating. you did not ask questions but i wanted to get that out there. >> does it remain the case that no companies, institutions or other entities have come forward to the federal government to claim possible ownership of the three objects that were shot down? >> as far as i know, it is true that no one has come forward to claim ownership. >> ok. and that illinois group, they

have not come forward -- >> not aware of any formal process or official process on behalf of that group to come forward. we have seen the press -- >> have you identified possible entities -- >> no lead on where the objects might have come from? >> we don't, sir. it will be difficult to make a positive identification unless you can get to the debris and even that can be a difficult process. >> no way to identify without debris. >> unless an organization comes forward and knows it was their property. >> is the government going to try to reach out to the illinois amateur -- >> we don't have the debris, there's no way to positively identify it. >> thanks. >> one question regarding the chinese balloon. can you tell us what's been determined from the wreckage that was found? >> no, i can't, because we are

not done doing the analyzing. they did finish the recovery operations off the carolina coast, got almost all, at least that which was recoverable and quite a bit, a significant amount, including the payload structure and the optics, and all of that is now at the fbi laboratory in quantico, they are analyzing it, looking at it, and we need to let them do their work in a thoughtful and deliberate way. and there may be some things we will not be able to disclose and you can understand why that is. we will exploit the material as best we can, we surveilled while it was flying over the country, and we will learn more by looking at the guts inside of the and see how it worked. >> -- u.s. based on the surveillance? >> we'll have to get inside and do the best we can on the forensics of it.

that said, we do not believe that they were able to get anything additive to what already they were able to get through other sources, because we could predict its flight path over the continent, because it was moving slow, we were able to put in place protocols at sensitive military sites in the country, particularly in the midwest, to limit any collection ability. so we don't believe that the balloon was able to collect anything of great significance, nothing additive to what the chinese may have been able to do through other means. >> john, a year ago in poland the president said vladimir putin shouldn't remain in power. but saying it was not a call for regime change. given the war has dragged on one year on, is there any change in the u.s. approach, do you think removing vladimir putin from power in moscow would help bring an end to this war?

>> there's no change in our policy with respect to the russian government. what could end the war is real simple. i mean, it ain't hard. all he's got to do is take his troops out of ukraine, they don't belong there anyway, pull them out, the war would be over. >> thank you very much, and thank you, admiral. two questions about this whole series of military shootdowns. first, it defies reason that you would have 0 idea what these three objects were since the fighter jets themselves took video of their sorties. will you release the cockpit videos from the missions? >> i never said we had 0 idea, i said we don't know what they are and so did the president. the president also told you the intelligence community leading explanations that they were a

benign purpose, commercial, recreation or scientific research. we may not be able to go to 100% certainty on that unless or until we can get to the debris and analyze it, and as i said earlier, that task alone is going to be very difficult and i can't predict with certainty we are going to be able to recover the debris. we have, we can't prove definitively, the intelligence community has helped us do some analysis on this, that's their leading explanation. >> so you have tried to portray this entire sequence of events as one in which the commander in chief demonstrated good judgment at the right time and did the right things. the president's critics obviously see it differently. and what they depict is a commander in chief who according to washington post reporting was able to track this chinese spy balloon from the inception of its mission off of the island to u.s. air space and across the country, and eventually that was

shot down after the chinese had a good look at whatever they wanted to see with that balloon. and who then presided over a series of missions in which millions and millions of dollars were spent and missiles were fired at objects that you now concede most likely were benign in nature, and that suggests a commander in chief who overreacted after allowing the chinese spy balloon to do what it did and then went trigger happy on a bunch of kites and balloons with no military aspect to them. >> i have reacted to that in the first question of the briefing. reacted to it. no americans in the air were hurt, no americans in the air -- on the ground were hurt, james, no significant surveillance achieved by the chinese spy balloon, and now we have an opportunity to learn even more

about this program. a program that we started to really study in earnest when we came into office. no apologies here. you make the best decisions you can with the information you have at the recommendation of the leaders in the defense department who are going to have to execute on that mission. the president did exactly that. put the safety and security of the american people first and will never apologize for that. >> knowing everything he did now, would he take the same steps and use the expensive missiles to shoot at the objects? >> policies in place to govern the way going forward, you make the best decisions you can, at the recommendation of military leaders. >> thank you, john, you've said often, actually, reclarify one more thing before i move on to ukraine. have we -- >> i can't imagine anything i said needs to be clarified. >> have we put forward the formal request for the call with president xi?

>> no. >> no formal request. >> no, it does not mean it's not going to happen. the president -- he will. >> understood. you said ukraine gets to decide when it wants to negotiate. at this point, is there any serious effort, or any effort from the administration side to look at pathways to peace, do we have any idea what the pathways to peace might look like, is it even realistic at this point absent of putin's stopping his aggression. >> we are working with mr. zelenskyy on his ten-point proposal, i think you are familiar with that, and he asked if the united states could devote some of our team to help his team figure out how we can best operationalize that proposal. >> the pathways to peace, the issue and who keeps

territorially. >> why do you think it's not realistic? >> you think it's realistic? >> do you think mr. putin has shown a scrap of interest in ending this war, no. it could end today. he's launching cruise missiles and drones into civilian infrastructure, knocking out the power, the heat, killing kids, sending kids to camps inside russia, buying drones from iran and trying to buy artillery shells from north korea, this is not a man who is at all serious about ending this war. and quite frankly it shouldn't have to end through negotiations. that's likely the way this will go when president zelenskyy is ready for it but he could end it now by pulling his troops out. he's shown no indication willing to do that, there cannot be a serious peace proposal or negotiation until the russians have shown a scrap of interest in actually stopping the murder

and slaughter of innocent ukrainian people. and in the meantime, as president zelenskyy said in munich, a need, urgent need for the rest of the global community to come together and support him so his troops can succeed on the battlefield, and that's what we will stay focused on. if and when he does negotiate, do so in position of strength. >> john, we have been talking about, first as relates to the chinese spy balloon, monitoring since it was in china, and shot down 12 miles off the coast of south carolina, why not make a decision to shoot it 12 miles off west coast as well, before it was over the u.s. land. >> without speaking to the veracity of this reporting, i would -- and this specific nature of our ability to track

it. norad commander has already spoken to this why he didn't take action at the time. >> wasn't he speaking to when it was over the united states. >> no, he got asked about approaching alaska and why he did not take action, and no hostile intent, no hostile threat, and concerned for lives and livelihood on the ground. >> do we have domain awareness gap. >> he has -- >> is that part of the review -- >> it's not a review. new policy parameters will help us with the decision-making process. the general talked about domain awareness gap. system is fine tuning the radars and sensitive to things that are high, slow and small, and we will work with the defense department, a new budget they

are working on, if there needs to be more resources applied to this particular challenge, that's certainly a conversation worth having. >> lastly, about the trip. in late january the administration announced dozens of bradleys would be sent to ukraine. any update, those obviously needed to be built. any update on the timetable within which those will be delivered to ukraine? >> abrams tanks. >> i meant to say abram tanks, yes. >> i don't know where they are in the procurement process, refer you to that department, but many months before they can be contracted for, built and procured and getting them into ukrainian hands. it's going to be a while. >> when the president says he's going to support ukraine as long as it takes, does it mean that if president zelenskyy decides to launch a battle to retake crimea, the president would support him as well?

and another question, can you confirm that top pentagon official has arrived in taiwan for a visit? >> the first question, iep -- i'm not going to get into an hypothetical question, that's up to zelenskyy and his team. when president biden says as long as it takes, he means as long as it takes. he's not trying to be cute by half. there's no special way to interpret that. as long as it takes. hopefully no longer than another day or so but i think we all know that's not the case. when he says it, he means it, and i think all you got to do is look back at the last year, at the unprecedented amount of assistance, security assistance alone, forget about the financial and humanitarian assistance the united states has not only provided but led the world in providing, so he stands by that and i can't confirm your other question, you have to talk to my colleagues at the defense department. i don't have detail on the schedule.

>> are you able to provide any update on whether there are discussions of other western leaders coming to poland while president biden is there. [inaudible] >> that what? >> that macron could come while the president is there. >> you have to talk to their offices for their travel. he looks forward to meeting with the b9 leaders, the eastern flank of nato coming to warsaw to meet with president duda. i don't know about any other. i did say he will reach out to prime minister sunak, and italy, and macron, anticipating conversations next week. >> does the white house have any sense of when it will go back to congress and ask for

another security assistance package from ukraine? >> no, hopefully we won't need to, but we are certainly prepared to, executing on the appropriate funds the end of last congress, some 42 i think billion dollars, much was devoted to -- we have been sending packages, and believe it will get through much of this year and no date certain, but obviously if we feel we have to go back to the president's comments as long as it takes, we'll do that, and at the appropriate time well in advance of the expiration of existing funds. >> priscilla. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> i was trying to be nice. >> welcome. >> thank you. on next week's visit, are there plans for president biden to cross into ukraine? >> no. >> and then on the balloons, the protocols and the way they have been adjusted now and how the

parameters will be adjusted in the future, does it give the administration confidence that items benign in nature won't be shot down? >> what i can tell you is these parameters will help us sharpen the decision-making process now that we are looking for more and finding more, and you think that's appropriate. but i would also point you back to what the president said. if he deems something is a threat, he's not going to hesitate. promise if he were to take that action every single thing would be exactly what we thought it would be, i can't promise you that. all i can promise is they will always act in the best interests of the american people, national security interest, the ability to protect our sensitive military sites and nation's secrets, that will always come first and always be the default position as he makes these decisions. >> does not rule out objects -- >> you are asking a hypothetical.

we are not there yet. every decision he'll make going forward will be in keeping with the new parameters, but also designed to keep us safe. thank you. >> are you kidding me? appreciate it. >> thank you, john. >> have a great weekend. >> ok, i have a couple things at the top, one of them i'll start off with the turkey, syria, and assistance we are providing currently after the devastating earthquake. so the u.s., through usaid, airlifting more than 2.5 worth of emergency release to turkey, and pledged to turkey and syria following the devastating earthquakes. u.s. ambassador to turkey, jeff flake, met the arrival of the supplies, while they were loaded on to trucks for delivery to affected communities. secretary blinken has also announced travel to turkey over the weekend. over the coming days, usaid will

transport relief supplies on ten flights, more than 1.8 million pounds of supplies, kitchen sets, hygiene kits, heavy duty plastic sheeting for temporary shelters and high thermal blankets to provide for hundreds of thousands of people. in syria, we must keep aid flowing so the syrian people get the help they so desperately need. the decisions earlier this week to open two additional border crossings for u.n. convoys is welcome but long overdue and we must ensure they cannot be turned off on a whim. we believe a security council resolution is the best way to do that, and will continue pressing that forward. i also want to say a few words about senator fetterman before we continue. millions of americans as you all know go untreated with

depression every day. senator fetterman did the right thing, and brave thing today, or just this week, by getting the help that he definitely needs. so the president is committed to making sure every american can get help they need, too, which is why he made addressing mental health a priority from his earliest days as president. his administration has made unprecedented investments, securing bipartisan funding to get more mental health resources to schools, and bolstering that 988 suicide hotline. in his state of the union speech just last week, the president continued to call for republicans and democrats to work together to get this done. as the president and first lady shared this morning, they are thinking about john, giselle, and their entire fetterman family today and they are

grateful to senator fetterman for being an example to this. and briefly and last, i want to say to all of you, yesterday secretary walsh announced he will step down from his role as labor secretary in the upcoming weeks. as the president said in his statement about the secretary's departure, he is one tough union chief and his record at the department of labor is a testament to the power of putting a card carrying union member in charge of fighting for american workers. through the secretary's leadership, helped unions secure historic pay raise for rail workers, continued the fight for paid sick days for all american workers, strengthen workplace protections, and ushered an historic surge in union organizing. secretary walsh's work has made life better for millions of working americans, and will serve as a model for all future labor secretaries who truly value american working people. we certainly wish the secretary

well in all his future face offs and puck drops. good luck to you, secretary walsh. >> question on house oversight committee wants to examine the u.s. pullout from afghanistan a second republican-led investigation. does the white house plan to cooperate with the investigation, how does it feel about? >> i'll say this. we have been providing congress with information on afghanistan and the operation for this past year, so don't have anything to add there. as you know, the white house counsel is very much focused on the oversight, the ones who are answering questions and dealing with the letters, certainly we'll take a look at the letters, so i will let them speak to this. >> what's the status of the administration [inaudible] ever going to be finished or -- >> so don't have any update on the review, i know it's been asked a couple times.

i know jake sullivan spoke to this, i don't have an update for you all and once we have something to share we will provide it. >> update for next week. >> i would have to honestly speak to jake sullivan, the national security counsel team, he has spoken this, i would have to go back and get information for you. >> regarding senator fetterman, while the president was at walter reed yesterday, did he by any chance see the senator there? >> i don't have any -- i don't have any meetings or conversations with senator fetterman to speak to at this time. >> and regarding the police officers charged in the death of tyre nichols, it's a community that was hurting, people want change there in the policing system, does the white house believe it can happen? and what's the reaction to the

officers pleading not guilty? >> i want to be mindful, it's an ongoing case and we are careful with a criminal investigation or case moving forward. re -- >> john: we will jump out of the white house briefing, most handled by john kirby, headline i thought there, sandra, no plans to reimburse the bottle cap balloon club for the 12 bucks for the balloon we might have shot down. >> sandra: and his comment we might never see these flying objects recovered. he noted obviously one is on sea ice in northern alaska, yukon territory another one in thick wilderness, the other over lake huron. canada has announced they are going to stop their search for it, the u.s. has not yet called that off but it's in very deep waters there, so i don't know what everybody takes away from that. a possibility -- so the question

whether or not we will ever see the images the military has of these is a good one. ari fleischer is with us now, your thoughts on listening to john kirby at the white house there on all of this? >> well, first and foremost, i enjoy listening to john kirby. he is articulate and has answers to a lot of questions, i don't agree with all the answers but a good spokesperson. what jump out at me what i did not hear. asked about other nations over which chinese spy balloons flew, the biden administration needs to launch an international effort over whose countries china flies spy balloons to shoot them all down. we cannot live in a world in which china is allowed to violate other nation's sovereignty and the united states ought to lead in this effort, as we would hopefully protect our homeland if china does it to us. we need to work with the other nations and know the backing and intelligence information from

the united states allowing them to do so. john talked about other nations but he did not say anything about working with them to stop china. >> john: ari, one of the things that stood out to me in kirby's part of the briefing, he was asked about the objects and why we took them down and said, paraphrasing here, put yourself in president biden's shoes, we just had a chinese spy balloon come over, military leaders did not know what the other "objects were doing," so they recommended that the president take them down and gave the order. that seems to reinforce the notion that why didn't we take down the china balloon when we first saw it? >> well, exactly right. and it doesn't speak to the mistakes made with the china balloon, should have been taken down over the pacific. but, i do think that was a good and credible answer, a heightened sense of alert after the chinese balloon and did get overly aggressive, taking down things that john kirby is right, the outcome is better than had it been three further incursions

from hostile can country over the united states of america. so these things do happen, military advice, that is how it works and if the balloons were flying at the altitude of commercial aviation. it was a credible answer, but does not speak to what went wrong with the china spy balloon and how that was allowed to traverse america. >> sandra: the question off the top to john kirby from a reporter, essentially whether or not it should be believed the president was trigger happy based on the timeline john just laid out. he responded absolutely not. they made, he said this many times, they made the best decision with the information they were given at that time. obviously they were not told these were recreational, possibly hobby balloons that were in flight. so they keep talking about this new set of rules. how long is that going to take? we could hear about more unidentified flying objects this weekend. why aren't we putting that place in now. we have heard it from the

administration throughout the week, it's been a couple weeks now. can't we get some protocol in order here so we know how we are going to handle this? >> yeah, what i would like to know, i fly a lot, is if there's a balloon at 32,000 feet and my plane hits it, who ends up worse. my airplane or the balloon. i hope the little balloons get popped by the airplanes so we don't have to shoot them down if they high up from a private commercial use, such as a used car lot. so look, i don't agree with the trigger happy reference. this is why i thought john kirby made a credible case. after the chinese balloon flew across the country we did go on a heightened state and changed the radar under the defense operations. it was warranted, we missed it, we blew it the first time, you don't blew it the second. now you have to recalibrate going forward. >> this was not covered in the j kirby briefing, but white house

response, the train derailment, the environmental disaster in east palestine, ohio. we had trent conaway, the mayor of east palestine on just a little while ago. i asked him about the fact that it took the epa administrator so long to get there, and the fact that pete buttigieg still has not shown up. here is what he said about reagan's visit and mayor pete not showing up. >> just a dog and pony show. they have sort of let us hang out to dry here, you know, i commend the united states epa, the actual people on the ground doing the actual work. as far as mayor pete as people like to call him, i would rather he just stay away. he is just going to cause a circus unless he's going to bring a shovel and shovel some dirt and get rid of this contaminated oil. only reason he needs to come to

the town. >> john: called it a dog and pony show, and to mayor pete, stay away unless you bring a shovel. that's how the townsfolk in the disaster are viewing the response. >> blown totally not only by the norfolk southern, the railroad company, but the biden administration. people there are scared. i know people who live 40 miles away who are scared about what's going on there and question whether they can drink their water, and walk outside in the rain. so, this is scary for people, and pete buttigieg, the head of the epa should have been there the day after it happened. you go there immediately as a sign that you care and get to the bottom of it, and they are going to get the resources and the answers to their questions. if you don't do it and not for two weeks, doubts seek in. this is scary. the plume for anybody who saw it on tv it was scary, can you imagine living anywhere near it.

>> sandra: seems like communications disaster one after another. you have to assume some significant serious conversations had in the white house to now correct what has been a serious delay in addressing the issues on the ground there in ohio. >> but sandra, it follows the pattern set by the boss. joe biden is slow to respond on everything. joe biden ran a campaign from his basement in 2016 and was -- 2020 and was successful at doing it, and he's been slow on everything, whether it was the taliban, whether it was the takeover of kabul, you name it, every crisis in the administration, he's been slow to react, slow to inform the public or never inform the public. so cabinet secretaries, they take the leader. none are moving to assure the people in ohio.

>> we tested the indoor air quality for close to 500 homes. we have not detected any elevated levels and the air is safe to breathe. if your water has been tested by the state, we believe it is safe to drink. >> john: president biden's epa chief on "america's newsroom" insisting it is safe to breathe the air and drink the water in the ohio town covered by toxins by a train derailment two weeks ago. ray hall lives less than a mile from the crash site and has filed a lawsuit. and ray's attorney. what was it like the day the train derailed and everything went to hell? >> well, first i would like to thank you for having me today. and the events of february 3rd were, it was just a mixed bag of feelings. i mean, we were confused, we were -- we didn't know what had actually happened, and there was

not -- the preceding 24 hours, there was not a lot of forth right information coming out regarding what we were dealing with here in east palestine, ohio. >> john: so what did you experience in terms of health effects, anything? >> well, i haven't really experienced anything health-related at this point. but most was just the extreme stress and anxiety, you know, of having that only 7, 8/10 of a mile from where we live. >> did you smell the chemicals, feel it breathing in? >> when we were initially evacuated, we went to a neighboring town and waited until 5:00 a.m. before we returned to town. when we did return to town, the air was laden with the chemicals. >> so, gary, you are spearheading the class action suit against norfolk southern here.

what are you looking for? >> john, thank you for having us on and the light that you are shining on this, you know, this catastrophe. >> john: it's important. >> and it's very important, and we are -- we are trying to get information, and maybe to help frame the magnitude of this catastrophe, the chief of mahoning county hazmat organization one of the early arrivers, said it was like the doors of hell were opened, and you can't open the doors of hell, have thousands of fish die, animals die, and hundreds, and potentially thousands of residents getting sick with sore throats and rashes and headaches and tell everyone that everything is fine, that the air quality is fine, water quality is fine. >> john: forgive me for interrupting, what are you

looking for from norfolk southern in the class action suit. >> we are looking for some answers, and at least some sort of a hint of accountability. there was a meeting on wednesday night in east palestine, organized and put on by mayor conaway, has done an excellent job, and the purpose was it was supposed to be an informational session where residents could get their critical questions answered. and it was -- we were all told that norfolk southern would be there. norfolk southern was too scared to show up. but they created a situation where the families in east palestine, they are afraid to go home and they would not come, they wouldn't answer questions, and we are right now, we are just trying to get reliable, credible information that these families can rely on so that they can try to live their lives without being in constant fear. >> john: let me go back to ray

here, the governor, mike dewine, tried to give assurances about the air and water. >> water is good to drink if it's coming from the municipal water system. the air, we will continue to monitor the air, but so far we have seen nothing in regard to the air out of the ordinary. >> john: a couple seconds left. ray, what do you say to that, are you assured by what the governor is saying or are you still scared? >> well, i see that what he's talking about with the municipal water system, a closed system, i feel that probably is safe but i have more concern for the people in the rural parts, outside of our village that are predominantly on well water. and that's an even deeper concern. >> john: we don't know if this thing is going to last for years, like so many other environmental disasters that we have seen in the past, but we are going to stay on it, keep watching it. ray, gary, thanks for joining us. appreciate it. god speed to you. >> sandra: thank you, thanks to

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>> sandra: as more and more migrants flood to new york city, mayor eric adams says he's opening yet another hotel to house the influx. that's the 85th hotel opening for migrants on the taxpayers dime. and according to a memo obtained by "the new york post," it could leave new yorkers on the hook for $4.2 billion for this border

crisis through next year. joining us now is brian kilmeade, some get opened and then clear them out, taxpayers are still paying for them, the rooms are empty, now new york city opening the 85th -- what is happening here, why is there no accountability? >> brian: mayor adams came out two months and and said i have a budget but the previous mayor overspent everything, people are not staying here, not living here and all of a sudden illegal immigrants bussed here but others just coming here, so about 47,000 illegal immigrants, but you have no complaints because you are a sanctuary city. you are a city that says if you come you can stay, there's no fear of being expelled. he pushed back against the busses, went to the mayor but the mayor is still sending the busses here and going to hotels, everything is free, what's consistent. they drink in the lobbies, they have sex in the stairwells, they destroy the rooms, they will go

out and wreak havoc in the city and come back for free. what kind of deal is that, incredible deal. it's only going to continue, word gets back in new york city, right to venezuela, right to other countries, and something else, my hope is hakeem jeffries went to the border and went with a serious guy, henry cuellar. serious guy. hope he had a legitimate conversation with the mayor, they are friends, and said i need help here and hope he transcends politics and says let's shut this down, stop this influx and let's get serious. he went to el paso and i think that place is an absolute hell hole. >> two powerful voices in all of this, as the numbers continue to climb. this is migrants arriving in new york city, this is just since last spring alone. 45,600 and counting. the new york city shelter population when adams took

office, 45,347. so -- >> brian: those people are still there and add the illegal immigrants. >> sandra: and we have our own homeless problem in the city already before these migrants even came in. i mean, i see them all the time, these lines for soup kitchens, unemployment lines, wrapped around blocks, it's challenging for the residents here. i want to move on to 2024, and nikki haley parental rights and seeming to take on desantis. >> all this talk about the florida bill, the don't say gay bill, basically said don't talk about gender before third grade. i'm sorry, i don't think that goes far enough. that's a decision for parents to make. that's not a decision for schools to make. >> sandra: so she says desantis' parental rights and education

law in florida does not go far enough. >> brian: very interesting, it's on. that is what governor desantis ran on along with youngkin, education. and wow, he's tough but not tough enough. i think haley had a heck of a rollout, after the following president, no one. and all week we have been talking about nikki haley, and gift from whoopie goldberg, and don lemon's comments yesterday about past your prime brought her back into the fray again and now talking about her again, talking about education, so smart to come out second, kind of interesting to see brought up tim scott right away, i appointed tim scott, he might be running against me, a good job where he is, and thinks i'm friends with president trump. but if you are over 75 take a competency test. she really thought this out. i think you are crazy to look past, to go to sleep on nikki haley. and you know this. she knows her stuff. she ran a state and was

basically a member of the state department, reporting directly to the president for two and a half years. >> sandra: she is out there a lot. "one nation" this saturday. >> brian: 8:00, north korean defector among the guests, a soviet seductress, how to flip spies from the soviet perspective and knows how to manipulate men. i didn't think that was possible. >> sandra: you leave me with no comment. that sounds amazing, 8:00. >> brian: and then go out after. you can go out to dinner at 9:00, you are an adult now. >> sandra: pour the cocktail, watch brian, then go out. >> brian: all i ask. >> john: she clearly knows how to manipulate men, she's on brian's show. president biden revealing the three downed objects were not linked to china but meanwhile an

illinois hobby club says their balloon might have been the one that was shot down over the yukon. the white house defending the decision to shoot down the object moments ago. mike waltz, florida republican congressman. your belief we fired a $400,000 stinger missile at a $12 balloon, missed one and took it down on the second occasion, this i think they got with the first shot. do you believe that to be true, if so, is it a problem? >> well, john, i was just looking at the article in aviation weekly that says the northern illinois bottle cap balloon brigade, ham radio club is reporting one of their balloons missing in action and it was projected to be over alaska and the yukon on the same date it was shot down, so -- it's circumspect, we'll see. i think going forwards, two

questions. what -- all seriousness, what are the military gaps in terms of the radars, sensor, over horizon capabilities, altitude the chinese are clearly taking advantage of, and then number two, i still don't understand what our shoot-down policy and criteria are, and it can't be if it's large and flying above civilian air space we give it a free pass. >> john: i don't think they even know, kirby suggested they are still working on it. but nikki haley this morning suggested the whole episode with the china balloon makes president biden look feckless. >> the idea we would sit there and look to the sky and have a chinese spy balloon looking back at us is a national embarrassment. the problem is that we have to start treating china like they deserve to be treated. >> john: does this administration need to change its position toward china? >> well, look, i think even more

broadly than that, it's a policy of appeasement. look at afghanistan, nord stream 2 lifting of sanctions, nothing in the wake of the colonial pipeline and that invited putin to believe he could get away with it, and then now this where chinese global propaganda is saying we told you the west was declining, we told you america was a spent power, we are the future, they can't even defend against a balloon. so i do think we need to get into a policy of reciprocity in terms of what they can or can't do, or what we can or can't do, we don't allow them, whether that's their diplomats, whether it's the espionage that we are facing, access to research laboratories and academia, and on down the list, and i think nikki haley is spot on. >> john: i want to talk to something else i know you are concerned about, chinese

company, partnering with ford, to build electric car batteries here in the united states. that company is tied to the chinese communist party's united front influence campaign. ford says this, ford is accelerating the reshoring of america's critical supply chains. ford will maintain full control of the battery facility, wholly owned by ford, no foreign investment. it does not eliminate the possibility of influence from china and where do the raw materials for the batteries come from, if not china? >> yeah, you are absolutely right. this is industry responding to government policy, and when you have states like california banning any gas powered vehicles, when you have the massive taxpayer funded subsidies in the inflation reduction act, then industry is going to respond. the problem is, all roads lead through china when it comes to the technology and we know their long painful history with i.p. theft and your point on the raw

materials, we are increasingly fighting for a smaller and smaller pool of lithium cobalt that the chinese communist party have gobbled up and our miners here are not allowed to refine because of strict environmental laws. and some of the largest reserves of lithium, copper, in the world, from afghanistan we walked away from. trading a dependency with oil and gas, we moved to energy independence, now we are driving towards dependency on our greatest adversary for the electric vehicle supply chain, not to mention solar panels and all the other things they can control. >> john: lots of those rare earth minerals in the state of alaska as well, if only we could get to them. >> if only welcome back get to them. >> john: good to talk to you.

enjoy daytona this weekend. >> sandra: a big sports weekend coming up only on fox, nascar is revving up for the super bowl of racing, daytona 500 this sunday. and you can only see it right here on fox. >> john: 47-year-old jimmie johnson, making a nascar comeback and shaming tom braid, two years older than tom brady. big race at 2:30 eastern time here on fox. i love nascar, but that's the one race i really love watching, particularly the way fox covers it as well, on restart the turn it up thing, i was watching with a friend some years ago in his fabulous home theater system, they said turn it up and we did and the whole place shook. >> sandra: that is exciting, a great weekend and great weather as well. john, it has been a jam packed news week, great to be with you, and the news will continue here

on the fox news channel. thanks to everybody for joining us at home. i'm sandra smith in new york. >> john: who thought after the state of the union week that we could have surpassed that, about but there was a ton of it this week. and you can bet, if you keep it on fox, a ton of it next week as well. here on "america reports." i'm john roberts. "the >> good afternoon. i'm trace gallagher in for martha maccallum. on "the story," the white house defending the decision to shoot down three other objects in the sky after the downing of a china spy craft even though they are still trying to figure out what they were. >> there shouldn't be any overarching concern that the skies are full of attack balloons or that they're at a greater risk. if anything, look back at how we dealt with this. again, with information that we had that wasn't complete but yet