Trump’s drone dud

Jan 31, 2025

Karoline Leavitt speaks during a press briefing.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a press briefing at the White House today. | Yuri Gripas/ABACA

UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES — In nearly two weeks since reclaiming the Oval Office, President Donald Trump has done just about everything to reverse course from Joe Biden — even drone messaging.

That was evident when Trump’s new press secretary took the podium for her first media briefing Tuesday to read a statement from Trump that sounded like a clear and definitive statement about the frenzy of apparent drone activity over New Jersey at the end of last year.

“This was not the enemy,” Karoline Leavitt averred.

“After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons,” she said.

But besides that, the statement was about as clear as the Passaic River. What research? By who? What were the “various other reasons” they were flying?

The FAA deferred those questions to the White House, which did not answer them.

The Biden administration came in for heaps of criticism for its lack of answers to all the objects flying through Garden State skies last year. Somewhat similarly to Trump, Biden’s team said it was “nothing nefarious” and what people saw were a “combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”

Yet for a couple weeks in New Jersey, about 18 million eyeballs gazed upward to take in what looked like minivan-sized objects floating by, spawning conspiracy theories and uninformed speculation in the absence of clear answers.

Democratic Sen. Andy Kim went drone hunting with local police. New Jersey’s parade of gubernatorial candidates got loads of, um, airtime telling the public how they would defend the skies — with one even saying he’d launch “a Star Wars type of encounter” if necessary. And state lawmakers trekked to Washington for a briefing that was so “worthless” to one of them, Republican Assemblymember Brian Bergen, that he walked out.

Now, with his party’s leader back in office, Bergen is just as dissatisfied with the White House response as he was a month ago when Biden was still president.

“It was a joke. The entire press conference was what you would expect to see in a Trump-era press conference — except for the first 20 sentences, which was completely scripted and crazy, honestly,” said Bergen, a former Army helicopter pilot. “A lot of people lined up to praise it because it was Trump saying it, but the reality is it isn’t a better update than what we received — except, credit where it’s due, they did say it’s not the enemy.”

Trump did provide a touch more detail than Biden’s team did by naming the FAA in his statement, but that might have just diverted attention to that agency. Bergen’s Republican colleague in the state Assembly, Christopher DePhillips, called Wednesday for the FAA to testify in the New Jersey statehouse because “the quest for answers continues.”

The state is still so preoccupied by the drone mystery that Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who’s also running for governor, sent a letter Tuesday night to the FAA seeking answers to some of your Nightly author’s questions. He said that the White House statement “raised new issues and new questions.”

“People deserve transparency here and they want answers,” Gottheimer said in an interview. “A lot of people have seen these drones with their own eyes.”

Kim said he’s also seeking more from the FAA, telling POLITICO that “the continued lack of specificity and clarity is deeply frustrating to the people of N.J.”

Trump — himself a part-time New Jerseyan who canceled a trip to his Bedminster golf club because of the drones — had promised so much more. “I’m going to give you a report on drones about one day into the administration, because I think it’s ridiculous that they’re not telling you about what’s going on with the drones,” he said about 10 days before taking office.

This week’s statement was far from a report.

Bergen suspects the public will get answers at some point. After all, Trump said he’ll declassify the government files on the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr., and he of course has a proclivity for making news when reporters are around.

Maybe that will happen someday at Bedminster.

“I’m hoping somebody catches Trump at the golf course or something and asks, ‘Hey, Trump, what’s up with the drones?’ And he answers it,” Bergen said.

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What'd I Miss?

— Pentagon shocked by Trump’s order to house migrants in Guantanamo Bay: The recent executive order to move thousands of noncitizens to an aging military base in Cuba came as a shock to the Pentagon. Officials are now rushing to come up with a plan to house up to 30,000 people, far more than the 780 detainees who stayed in a detention camp on the base during the peak of the war on terror. Defense Department officials are discussing using tents, although they face the challenge of tropical weather, limited staff and access to medical treatments for migrants. And they’re attempting to balance resources and finances with another Trump order that troops head to the southern border to enhance security.

— Rubio to press El Salvador to take deportees that other countries won’t accept: The State Department said today that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will use his visit to El Salvador next week to push officials there to agree to receive deported foreign nationals from countries that do not accept U.S. deportation flights. Special envoy to Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone told reporters that the U.S. wants to restore a deal from Trump’s first term that designated it as a “safe third country” for such deportees. The Biden administration canceled that accord before it could be implemented and deportees could be sent there.

— USDA ordered to scrub climate change from websites: Agriculture Department employees have been ordered to delete landing pages discussing climate change across agency websites and document climate change references for further review, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO. The directive from USDA’s office of communications could affect information across dozens of programs including climate-smart agriculture initiatives, USDA climate hubs and Forest Service information regarding wildfires, the frequency and severity of which scientists have linked to hotter, drier conditions fueled by climate change. And it is reminiscent of moves made during the first Trump administration to remove references to climate change from federal government websites.

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION

THE NEXT CENSUS — The director of the Census Bureau announced this week he is resigning, clearing the way for President Donald Trump to appoint an ally to lead the agency that plays a crucial role in American politics. Robert Santos’ decision comes “after deep reflection,” according to a letter he sent Thursday, which was obtained by POLITICO. He said he plans to spend more time with family following his retirement.

Santos was nominated by then-President Joe Biden in 2021, following a tumultuous few years at the agency. The 2020 Census — which was the decennial count of every person in America that determines the number of House seats each state gets and billions in federal funding — was thrown into chaos by a fight over the first Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question and the pandemic.

TVA DAMN — Jeff Lyash, the CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority whom President Donald Trump had criticized in his first term, will retire from the nation’s largest publicly owned utility later this year, he said in an email obtained by POLITICO. He said in the email that he began discussing his retirement last fall with the board of directors and has had subsequent conversations since then.

He said in the email that he began discussing his retirement last fall with the board of directors and has had subsequent conversations since then. In the first Trump administration, Trump blasted Lyash, who has been paid $10 million annually in recent years, as being “heavily overpaid,” and he fired two of TVA’s board members.

CASH INFUSION — President Donald Trump, the self-anointed “Tariff Man,” loves to be unpredictable.

The ability to threaten trade barriers gives him a vast source of leverage against any country that incurs his disapproval without necessarily requiring any action by him at all. Just witness Mexico and Canada scrambling to avoid the 25 percent tariffs that Trump has promised as soon as this weekend.

It’s not an approach he’s likely to give up anytime soon, according to a number of people in Trump’s orbit, a reality that will no doubt keep markets — with their constant search for certainty about the future — in an uneasy state.

But there’s a practical limit to Trump’s unpredictability because he needs tariffs to do more than strong-arm other countries. He needs them to provide some hard-number cash for the treasury. The administration is serious about using duties as a way to raise revenue as Republicans look to extend and expand tax cuts, Trump allies said. So they are working to develop a framework for achieving that — one that goes well beyond one-off threats.

AROUND THE WORLD

M23 rebels escort government soldiers and police who surrendered to an undisclosed location in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025.

M23 rebels escort government soldiers and police who surrendered to an undisclosed location in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. | Moses Sawasawa/ AP

ON THE MARCH — Rwanda-backed rebels are expanding their presence in eastern Congo after capturing Goma, the region’s major city, the U.N. said today, also expressing concerns over executions it learned were carried out by the rebels in recent days following a major escalation of their yearslong rebellion, reports The Associated Press.

Congolese forces, meanwhile, repelled the rebels in their offensive towards South Kivu’s provincial capital of Bakuvu on Thursday, residents and local officials said. The M23 rebel group has captured several towns after seizing neighboring Goma, a humanitarian hub critical for many of the 6 million people displaced by the conflict. They have said they will march to Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, which is nearly 1,000 miles (around 1,600 kilometers) away.

The M23 group is the most potent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control in Congo’s mineral-rich east, which holds vast deposits critical to much of the world’s technology. They are backed by around 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, far more than in 2012 when they first captured Goma in a conflict driven by ethnic grievances.

BACKFIRE — Friedrich Merz, the conservative frontrunner to become Germany’s next chancellor, suffered a major political defeat today as his controversial immigration bill backed by the far right was rejected in the Bundestag, with some members of his own party refusing to support the measure.

Merz had earlier declared his willingness to push through the draft law to restrict migration even with support from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, a move that weakened Germany’s so-called firewall against the far right and sparked a fierce pre-election debate that struck at the heart of the country’s postwar identity.

The draft bill, which sought to impose stricter immigration controls, failed in a narrow vote — 338 in favor, 350 against — marking a significant blow to Merz’s leadership and election strategy just weeks before Germany’s federal vote, set for Feb. 23.

Nightly Number

$2.5 million

The amount Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for HHS secretary, has earned in recent years for referring cases to the law firm Wisner Baum in an ongoing lawsuit over the HPV vaccine Gardasil, according to his financial disclosures.

RADAR SWEEP

PICK ME FOOD — Avocados are to millennials what pickles and olives are to Gen Z — an “it-food.” Pickled everything took off on social media during Covid, with videos of young people drinking pickle brine, reviewing pickles at the store or putting edible glitter into a pickle jar to mirror a snow globe. Pop star Dua Lipa, even posted a video putting pickle juice in her Diet Coke. Major companies like Doritos, Mountain Dew and Nature Made swiftly tapped in, releasing pickle-flavored items. Food experts trace this phenomenon to people who were consumed with boredom, sparking a “desire to experiment” and create TikTok clickbait. But this is not the first “it-food.” These are typically foods that might be an acquired taste, but ride a wave of interest. For Vox, Rebecca Jennings explores how pickles and olives became a fad, and what the next hot food could be.

Parting Image

China's Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, foreground, salutes the Lincoln Memorial in Washington Jan. 31, 1979. Deng's visit to the U.S. coincided with the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. (AP Photo)

On this date in 1979: China's Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping (foreground) salutes the Lincoln Memorial. Deng’s visit to the U.S. coincided with the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. | AP

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