President Joe Biden could deliver remarks this week addressing the downing of the Chinese spy balloon and other unidentified high-altitude objects over North American airspace, two sources familiar with the matter said.
White House officials are actively weighing a potential address by the president, the source said. Officials had been wary of Biden speaking publicly about the objects until more information is gathered about the three unidentified objects that were downed last weekend. But calls on Capitol Hill for Biden to address the matter publicly have been mounting.
Federal officials have said the initial Chinese surveillance balloon downed off the coast of South Carolina was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations and had a payload around the size of three buses. By comparison, the subsequent objects, which haven’t been attributed to a specific country or entity, are believed to be much smaller. And the United States is now also increasingly confident that the three objects that were downed between Friday and Sunday were “benign” balloons.
Officials have also said they expect to release new protocols on how they will handle similar unidentified objects going forward later this week.
Administration officials from the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community have briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill on the initial Chinese spy balloon. Republicans on Capitol Hill have criticized Biden for not approving the military to down the first balloon quickly enough, letting it sail eastward for days.
But in the classified congressional briefings, administration officials argued that the US didn’t move earlier to shoot down the balloon in part over fears it could provoke an escalation of military tensions with China. Biden gave the order to shoot down the balloon whenever the Pentagon felt it was safe to do so, the sources…
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