Description

Submission statement

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) speaks to Andrea Mitchell about the ongoing drone incursions in the US. Senators and staff briefed again (on 12/12/2024) about NJ drones. Drones spotted over warships off the West Coast (unclear which specific incident Mitchell is referring to), over nuclear sites, over CIA (Langley VA). Andrea Mitchell opens the interview with a slight chuckle and a smirk, but the Senator quickly makes the case for taking the situation seriously.

Some Sen Gillibrand quotes:

* “We have no idea the purpose of these drones, who’s controlling them, and whether they are putting the American people at risk”
* “We’ve had drone incursions over Langley for two weeks in a row, and did not see them coming, did not know where they were from or who was operating them.”
* “*They’re using technology in some of these instances that are unfamiliar*.”
* “The size of these drones [in NJ] are unusual, sizes not commercially available or at least not readily available commercially.” … “the size of the drones reported over Langley were also quite large” … “but we still believe they are unmanned”.
* “I’m working with Sen. Cotton on legislation that when these incursions occur over military installations, or nuclear sites, or sensitive areas, that the DOD will have the authority to take them down”
* “If there are ships off the coast that are launching these drones, we need to know who is controlling those ships”
* “Quite dissatisfied” with the response so far by DHS, FBI, FAA.
* “We cannot simply say ‘well they’re not causing any harm’ - do we know that? What are they doing? And who’s sending them?”
* “There’s reason to believe that drone incursions that have happened over many months over the last few years in different places in the United States, could have been launched from ships [at sea]... they need to be launched from somewhere”.
* “We don’t have any evidence of a specific Iranian ship”.
* “We don’t know who’s building them, who’s flying them, and we don’t know their purpose”… “as someone on the Intel Committee, this causes me grave concern”.
* "We should not be looking at these in the way we would look at a kite or a balloon"

Midway through the interview, Mitchell acknowledges she needs to “roll back my skepticism about that” to which the Senator replies “…Yeah.”