Today news
2025-01-28 19:13:00
The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that the mysterious drones that were spotted in skies around New Jersey and the east coast at the end of last year were “authorized to be flown by the FAA”.
In the first press briefing of Donald Trump’s second administration, Leavitt said that she had “news directly from the president of the United States that was just shared with me in the Oval Office”.
“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 said, adding that “many of these drones were also hobbyists, recreational and private individuals that enjoy flying drones”.
“In time, it got worse due to curiosity,” she said. “This was not the enemy.”
The flurry of drone sightings occurred in December. At the time, Trump, who was then the president-elect, questioned why government officials had not been more forthcoming and said that the “government knows what is happening”.
“Look, our military knows where they took off from – if it’s a garage, they can go right into that garage,” Trump said.
Former president Joe Biden said at the time that the drones were “nothing nefarious” and told the public that his administration was following the issue closely but that there was “no sense of danger”.
John Kirby, Biden’s national security communications adviser, also said at the time that the drones were not a national security or public safety risk.
