Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) nicely smacked down the ridiculous fear mongering.

Rep. Jim Himes serves on the House Intelligence Committee. If anyone would know that the drone sightings over New Jersey are not a national security or public threat, he would.

But that didn’t stop Fox News host Jacqui Heinrich from doing her best to suggest otherwise throughout the nearly nine minutes she spoke to Himes on today’s Fox News Sunday.

Himes began by criticizing the FAA for not doing a better job of explaining to the public that there’s nothing to fear about the drones. He said the FAA should have already shown “a picture of the number of aircraft, commercial and private and military, that go over New Jersey in any 24-hour period.” Then the FAA should explain that there are about 800,000 registered drones in the U.S. and probably  “several million more” that are unregistered.” Instead, there has been a vacuum that has fostered conspiracy theories.

 “Let me say something that I know with confidence. It is not the Iranians. It is not the Chinese. They aren't Martians,” Himes said. “I can say that because I spend all my time as the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee watching what the Iranians and the Chinese do.”

“I know that's very unsatisfying for people who want a Hollywood movie out of this,” Himes added.

Himes explained he knows this because “What Iranians and Chinese don’t do is put a bunch of drones that we could easily recover over the continental United States.” He noted that while the military does an amazing job of maintaining the capability to defeat the Iranians, “If there's 12 teenage boys in Montclair, New Jersey flying Walmart drones, the military is not very good at identifying that and dealing with that.”

Heinrich clearly knew her job was to weaponize the issue (like just about every other discussion on Fox “News”). So instead of suggesting that viewers should be reassured, she kept suggesting otherwise. First, she said, that the White House “appeared to make a series of false statements” on the subject when they said there had been no evidence of activity in or near restricted spaces. “There also appears to be evidence of criminal activity, because these drones are not operating on the FAA system, as required by law,” she continued. “Do you think that this mixed messaging invites a credibility crisis for the government that could have a real impact on the American people?” she “asked.”

I wish Himes had called out the real agenda here. But he did a good job of explaining the situation that I hope viewers properly heard and understood. He acknowledged that there has been “case after case of people flying drones into restricted airspace.” But “let's not jump immediately to Iranians, to Chinese to Martians,” he said.

Heinrich was still intent on her baseless fear mongering. “Is it really possible that the federal government is not in a position to address a potential threat over the homeland? What would happen if one of these was carrying a weapons payload?” she asked.

Himes said it’s still murky what’s the federal government’s responsibility and what’s local government’s responsibility. He pointed out that anyone can walk into Walmart and get a drone and that the Department of Homeland Security is not going to worry about a personal drone flying next to somebody’s window with a camera.

“And all I'm saying is we should be sober about it and not start worrying about Iranian motherships or the Martians landing, you know, as New Jersey so famously had happen with the old Orson Welles thing of many, many decades ago.”

Finally, Heinrich played her Trump card, so to speak. She now “asked,” “So is there no concern in your mind that this could be potentially a Pearl Harbor moment, like with the Japanese submarines surveilling in the waters off Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack? Do you really have no concern this might be a state actor preparing for some kind of an event in the future?”  

No, Himes said. Our adversaries “have billion-dollar satellites over our heads right now” observing, but “what they’re not going to do” is “put technology over Newark, New Jersey that could fall out of the sky and we would capture it.”

“There's lots of things to worry about, don't get me wrong,” Himes further said, including worrying about Iran and China “but no, they are not going to launch an attack on Pearl Harbor that is preceded by drones. Now, does that mean that they're not going to use it to try to spy on our sensitive facilities? Of course they might. But no, this is not the predecessor for an attack on the American homeland. I can promise you that.”

Heinrich began to close the interview. She said with laughable disingenuousness, “I hope that people can take some solace in your confidence there, Congressman, because it's been a wild week or so, and it's been going on for several weeks now.”

You can watch Heinrich deliberately try to frighten viewers below, from the December 15, 2024 Fox News Sunday.

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