Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Newsmax Wednesday that the Biden administration could not answer “very basic questions” about the three aerial objects that were shot down by the U.S. military over the weekend.
“We learned not much, actually, from the classified briefings [on the objects], other than they're looking at it in the administration, and they'll tell Congress and the American people when they feel like it,” Lankford said during an appearance on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.” “It was a very, very frustrating briefing on this.”
“We had some very basic questions about, ‘How did you identify these objects?’” he continued. “‘What was different about them than normal?’ People lose track of the fact it’s what's called unidentified aerial phenomenon. We've had 250 of those over just the last two years. Our most basic question is, ‘Why did you shoot these three down?’”
Lankford said that the senators pressed the administration to explain what was different about these three versus the 247 they hadn’t shot down.
“We couldn't get the most basic of answers on this,” he said. “They literally couldn't tell what they were and so they shot them down. We don't know whether they were a foreign spy craft or whether they were a giant gorilla inflatable balloon from a used car lot. We have no idea.”
Building on comments by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., that President Joe Biden needs to address the nation about the Chinese spy balloon that preceded the objects, Lankford said he isn’t “surprised because the president doesn't want to be able to talk about this.”
“We knew it was a spy balloon,” he said. “It was clearly seen as a spy balloon. It was seen over American waters in Alaska before it ever reached anything over Alaskan land itself. We should have shot it down when it reached American waters, and instead he hesitated at the moment he needed to act."
“It went all the way over Alaska, all the way over Canada, and then started scanning our nuclear missile silos in the northern United States,” the Sooner State senator said. “It was a huge mistake based on his hesitation when he should have acted. He doesn't want to answer that question publicly. He's hoping this will just go away.”
Lankford said that the “biggest issue” is the Chinese spy balloon was able to travel over the country, followed by the other three aerial objects.
“There are things that are floating up there,” the Oklahoma Republican said. “Most of them are just benign, weather balloons, whatever it may be, but we don't know what these are. And so we've got to be able to find out what they are and the administration needs to come out and explain it.”