WASHINGTON — President Biden went a fifth consecutive day Wednesday without discussing his unprecedented decision to order the shootdown of three unidentified objects over North American airspace — one day after his official flack praised him as “the best communicator that we have in the White House.”
Biden, 80, took no reporter questions Wednesday and didn’t mention the incidents while speaking at his only public event of the day, in which he delivered well-worn spin on the economy to Maryland union members.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also didn’t hold a briefing or gaggle Wednesday — after Biden’s avoidance of questions on the shootdowns was the main topic of her briefing Tuesday.
“We are sharing as much information as we can, as — as possible,” Jean-Pierre said at one point. “And — but we do want to make sure that the Americans — American people understand that there’s no need to panic. The President took this action, as I mentioned earlier, because the objects were indeed flying at low — lower elevation and they were in civilian airspace. And we wanted to make sure that we protected that airspace. But, again, you know, we want to also make sure that the Americans are not — do not panic during this time.”
Biden, who declined to sit for a traditional Super Bowl interview with Fox News, hasn’t said anything about scrambling fighter jets to shoot down likely innocuous objects since Friday, when he said the takedown of an object near Alaska’s coast “was a success.”
Biden ordered additional shootdowns of objects Saturday over Canada’s Yukon territory and Sunday over Lake Huron — with an initial $450,000 missile missing the latter target, requiring a second shot.
White House spokespeople didn’t respond Wednesday to The Post’s request for comment on Biden’s silence.
Critics question whether Biden ordered the spate of missions as an overreaction after being stung by criticism of his decision to allow a Chinese spy balloon to hover over sensitive US facilities from Alaska to South Carolina before ordering its downing off the Atlantic coast on Feb. 4.
Authorities in the US and Canada haven’t found any debris from the three other objects.
Biden, whose family has extensive business interests in China, barely mentioned the spy balloon incident at all during his Feb. 7 State of the Union address to Congress — despite blanket coverage of the incident by news outlets. Much of that balloon’s debris has since been recovered by the US military.
Although Biden has not recently addressed the balloon or the UFOs, Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview published Wednesday by Politico that the spy balloon shouldn’t have negative effects on the diplomatic relationship with China. “I don’t think so, no,” Harris said.
Legislators from both parties, including senators who received a classified briefing Tuesday, are calling on Biden to address the public after the bizarre incidents
“I think the public needs and deserves to know more. A lot of what we’ve been told are facts that the American people could know and should know, without any harm to our national security,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said after the briefing. “I’ve urged repeatedly that on this topic and others, the administration could be more forthcoming.”
“My phone is ringing off the wall and we got a president of the United States who is not saying anything,” agreed Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). “Get out there and tell the people we’re in good shape, we know what’s going on and let’s go on with our lives. But for some reason we have no leadership right now.”
New York Times reporter Michael Shear pointedly asked Jean-Pierre on Tuesday if Biden was “embarrassed” about the likelihood that he ordered the military to down innocuous objects — after the press secretary conceded that “the intelligence community is considering as a leading explanation that these could be tied to commercial or research entities and benign.”
“The National Weather Service website says that weather balloons are released around the world at 900 locations twice a day every single day of the year, including 92 released by the National Weather Service in the US, that they fly for at least two hours a day, drift as far as 125 miles… and rise up to 100,000 feet above the ground,” Shear noted.
“If it turns out, as it looks like, that the president and [Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau sent top gun fighters to blow weather balloons out of the sky, does the president regret that and is he embarrassed by that?”
Jean-Pierre attempted to side-step the question, with Shear pressing her: “Is the president embarrassed by that — the idea that he would take hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment —”
“I don’t think the president should be embarrassed, right, by the fact that he took action to make sure that our our airspace — civilian airspace was safe,” Jean-Pierre finally said.
Near the end of the briefing, the press secretary was asked if the White House felt Biden was more or less adept in certain settings, such as set-piece addresses or press conferences.
“I will tell you this,” Jean-Pierre responded. “The president is the best communicator that we have in the White House.”
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