House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner said Sunday he prefers the way the United States has shot down unidentified objects in North American airspace in recent days to allow them to travel through the country.
A U.S. fighter jet shot down an unidentified object near Lake Huron late Sunday, the fourth time the U.S. military has shot down an object in North American airspace in a week. On Saturday, an unidentified object was shot down over northern Canada, and on Friday, an unidentified object was shot down by a U.S. F-22 over Alaska airspace. Last weekend, a Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina.
“I’d rather they be happy to trigger than be lenient, but we’re going to have to see if it’s just the administration trying to change the headlines,” Turner, the Ohio Republican, said of the Biden administration in 2018 in Sunday’s shootdown. The incident followed an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
“I think what it shows, and perhaps more important to our policy discussions here, is that we really have to declare that we’re going to defend our airspace. And then we need to invest,” Turner added. “It shows some of the problems and gaps that we have. We need to fill those people as quickly as possible because we’ve identified a threat now.”
There is currently no indication that the unidentified objects have any connection to the Chinese surveillance balloons, but national security officials across the continent appear to be on edge.
read more