White House: We Don’t Know Enough to Take Down Drone over Ocean

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby stated that shooting down one of the mysterious drones over the ocean can’t be done because “we have to develop the policy options based on what we know we’re dealing with here and we just don’t know enough” to do something like that.

Host Martha MacCallum asked, “Why not just take one down and figure out what’s going on?”

Kirby responded, “Well, okay, the idea of taking something down, again, you’ve got — you want to worry about public safety. First of all, we don’t have enough conclusions to take that kind of a policy action. But let’s just assume for a minute, Martha, that we did. You’re not going to want to shoot something down where it could hit somebody’s house or hurt somebody.”

MacCallum then cut in to ask, “Well, the Coast Guard says that there are 30 of them following one of their ships in the ocean. So, would that work?”

Kirby answered, “Again, we have to develop the policy options based on what we know we’re dealing with here and we just don’t know enough to make those kinds of — to take those kinds of actions. But, my goodness, we’re going to do everything we can to find out and we’re going to share as much as we can. I understand it’s frustrating for folks. It’s frustrating for us. We want to know as well.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.