Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The downing of a third high-altitude object — this one over Canada, on Saturday — only increases the urgency for Congress to get to the bottom of what appears to be a previously unknown surveillance program by the Chinese, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

In an exclusive interview, Schumer told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos that “the bottom line is, until a few months ago, we didn’t know of these balloons.”

The suspected Chinese reconnaissance program also existed during the Trump administration but was only recently discovered by the U.S. intelligence and military communities, according to Schumer.

“It’s wild we didn’t know, isn’t it?” Stephanopoulos said.

“It is wild that we didn’t know, absolutely,” Schumer said, adding, “Now they are learning a lot more.”

And now, Schumer said, it’s essential for lawmakers to learn more, too. He pointed to efforts by Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

“That’s something I support, Congress should look at that. That’s the question we have to answer,” Schumer said. “I think our military, our intelligence is doing a great job, present and future. I feel a lot of confidence in what they are doing. But why as far back as the Trump administration did no one know about this?”

Schumer said he was briefed by the White House’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on the most recent object shot down over Canada on Saturday. According to Schumer, intelligence officials believe that object as well as the unknown object shot down over Alaska on Friday and the craft downed over South Carolina waters earlier this month were all balloons.

The vessels over Alaska and Canada were “much smaller” than the earlier balloon and posed a different threat because they were flying at a similar altitude to commercial planes, Schumer said.

“The military and the intelligence are focused like a laser on, first, gathering and accumulating the information, then coming up with a comprehensive analysis of what went on before, what’s going on now and what could go on in the future,” Schumer said.

All members of Congress were briefed Thursday on the suspected Chinese spy craft that was shot down off the South Carolina coast on Feb. 4 after it crossed over much of the continental U.S. The briefing prompted outrage from some Republicans who criticized the administration for failing to act sooner.

But Schumer defended the administration’s decision.

“We got an enormous intelligence information from surveilling the balloon as it went over the United States,” Schumer insisted.

“Didn’t the Chinese get enormous intelligence as well?” Stephanopoulos followed up.

“They could have been getting it anyway. But we have to know what they’re doing, OK?” Schumer said.

By shooting the vessel down over water, Schumer said the U.S. will be able to literally piece together more information about its capabilities: “We’re going to probably be able to piece together this whole surveillance balloon and know exactly what’s going on.”

He called it “humiliating” for China and a “huge coup for the United States.”

“I think the Chinese were caught lying, and I think it’s a real step back for them,” he said.

There is growing bipartisan agreement in Congress that something must be done to counter China’s aggression, both from the sky and in commerce and competition. Schumer, a self-described “China hawk,” pointed to ongoing legislative efforts to regulate the U.S. relationship with China in other ways as well — by encouraging domestic rather than overseas manufacturing and by considering a possible ban on TikTok, the popular China-backed social media app.

Still, Schumer said, “We can’t just have a cold war with them [China]. We have to have a relationship.”

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., echoed Schumer in his own appearance on “This Week,” but faulted the Biden White House for not setting “a very good example of standing up to China” on economic, academic and patent issues.

“This is a problem for the United States. And we need an administration to stand firm,” he said.

Debt ceiling needs to be addressed ‘without brinksmanship’

While lawmakers look to chart a path forward on U.S. policy toward China, the potential of a debt limit crisis is sending both parties to their respective camps.

The management of how to increase the $31.4 trillion federal debt ceiling, which the Treasury Department has indicated will need to be done as soon as June to make sure none of the federal government’s bills go unpaid, could culminate in a high-stakes stare down between House Republicans and the administration.

Republicans in the chamber, led by newly elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy, are insistent that any increase to the debt limit be conditioned upon cuts to the federal budget. But President Joe Biden wants Congress to raise the debt ceiling without conditions and has said that any discussions of the budget should happen separately.

Senators on both sides of the aisle have largely insisted that a solution be crafted between McCarthy and the White House. Schumer threw his full weight behind the administration’s position Sunday.

“We have a position, we have a clear position: Do it clean do it, without brinksmanship. Do it without this risk of hostage-taking where things could blow up,” Schumer sad. “Because as you know, if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, average American families will be clobbered.”

The Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, has accused Schumer and Senate Democrats of hypocrisy in their position, noting in floor remarks last week that at one point during the Trump administration, Schumer cast the debt limit as an “ample opportunity for bipartisanship, not for one party jamming its choices down the throats of the other.”

But when pressed by Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” Schumer insisted that McConnell drew a false equivalency.

“The bottom line is that we never did what McCarthy is doing — brinkmanship, holding hostage, saying ‘I won’t do the debt ceiling, I won’t raise the debt ceiling and raise the debts that of course we’ve incurred unless I get certain things that I want,'” Schumer said.

Schumer called on McCarthy, as he has been doing for weeks, to release a plan on his proposed budget cuts. Comer said on “This Week” that the GOP conference is working on its budget request and that it would not — as Schumer suggested — include cuts to Social Security or Medicare.

Biden made a similar call for Republicans to outline what they want during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, which Schumer cast a broad success.

He pointed to Biden’s speech, which highlighted many of the legislative accomplishments Democrats secured in the president’s first two years, as evidence that the Biden is in “great shape” heading into a potential 2024 presidential reelection bid, despite polling showing most Democrats want another nominee.

“What do you say to them?” Stephanopoulos asked.

As more of Biden’s legislative agenda is implemented, support for him will grow, Schumer argued.

“I think the stature of Biden and what this Congress, this Democratic Congress, Senate and the House, have done is going to even rise further in the American people’s eyes,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — In the six months since the launch of the national, government-backed 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, contact and answer rates have risen dramatically, while the average speed to answer has dropped, according to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration data.

“As we expected, there’s been a significant increase in the use of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline service since this transition to a three-digit number,” April Naturale, interim executive director of the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, told ABC News. “And actually, we’re really grateful that more people are contacting the line with this change. That was the whole goal.”

In December, 87% of calls, 96% of chats and 99% of texts were answered across the nation, according to SAMHSA — a 91% overall answer rate. In December 2021, under the previous, 10-digit lifeline, 81% of calls, 24% of chats and 52% of texts were answered, for a total answer rate of 64%.

The increase in answer rates nationwide comes amid a sharp increase in contacts since the launch of 988, the federal agency said.

SAMHSA data shows that 371,655 people contacted the lifeline in December, compared to 260,095 in December 2021.

In that same one-year period, the average speed to answer across all contacts dropped from 172 seconds (roughly three minutes) to 44 seconds.

“Both [contacts and answer rates] have increased at the same time because we were able to increase our capacity to answer more calls more quickly,” Naturale said.

988 launched on July 16, 2022, and marked a transition from the previous National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s number. That service originated in 2005 and, advocates say, struggled to get adequate funding and staffing since its inception.

Ahead of the transition to the new, shorter number, advocates and stakeholders told ABC News about widespread concern that the anticipated influx of calls would be too much for the service to bear.

“There was a very short window from when [the law creating 988] passed in 2020 to the go-live date in 2022. And I had a few sleepless nights myself about what this would look like, but I’m really encouraged and excited by the data that we’re seeing,” said Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

“There was a lot of work being done to build up that capacity, and clearly it made all the difference,” Wesolowski said.

The Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, passed in January, included $506.1 million to support and expand services provided by the lifeline. Combined with the $432 million previously allocated to shore up capacity ahead of the 988 launch, the Biden administration has invested almost $1 billion in the service.

“We know that many people across the country are struggling with mental health or substance use related crises,” said Dr. Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, the head of SAMHSA and the Department of Health and Human Services assistant secretary for mental health and substance use. “The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is a life-saving service and I am encouraged to see that more and more people are reaching out and getting connected to the support and care they need and getting connected more quickly than ever before.”

How money has helped response rates

Naturale, the 988 interim executive director, told ABC News that the federal funding leading up to the launch of the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline assisted in efforts to expand chat and text services so that more centers could answer those contacts more quickly.

“One of the things we wanted to really focus on with the addition of the 988 funding was being able to expand our chat and text offering. [That] really helps us to reach more people who wouldn’t normally pick up the phone,” Naturale explained. “We think we’re reaching a much more expanded audience, and the new funding allows us to continue working on this expanded list of centers so our answer rates and our capacity are both strong.”

The emphasis on chat and text comes amid concerns for the mental health of American youth.

Last month, SAMHSA released its 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which showed that 20.1% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 experienced a major depressive episode during 2021.

“As more youth started to use text and then chat [to 988], we felt the need to pay attention to those modalities,” Naturale said. “Even though calls remain high, we still get a significant number of contacts or calls, there has been a significant increase in overall utilization across the country of chat and text as communication modality. So, we needed to meet that challenge.”

New services offered

988 is also offering new services six months out from its initial launch. After an initial $7.2 million investment from SAMHSA, the lifeline subcontracted with The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, as the primary service provider for an LGBTQ-specific pilot line that started in September 2022.

It enables users of 988 to dial 3 after calling in to be connected with a counselor trained explicitly to support LGBTQ youth and young adults.

“We are incredibly proud to partner with the federal government to provide access to our best-in-class crisis services to more LGBTQ youth than ever before,” Preston Mitchum, director of advocacy and government affairs for The Trevor Project, told ABC News.

Mitchum said that the fiscal year 2023 appropriations for the lifeline — $29.7 million is designated to help enhance training and provide more access to support disproportionately impacted youth — will help build upon this program and increase access.

“The clear demand for this service not only demonstrates that LGBTQ youth face unique mental health challenges and increased suicide risk compared to their peers but also that they desire specialized care,” Mitchum said. “Part of the reason why LGBTQ youth face these disparities is because of experiences of rejection, isolation and stigma. We hear from young people every day who simply want to be respected and affirmed for who they are.”

“In moments of crisis, it’s vital that LGBTQ youth can access counselors who can understand their identities and the issues they face and provide empathy,” he added.

Since the pilot program began, about 5% of calls routed in the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline network, along with 9% of chats and texts — accounting for about 111,000 total contacts — a spokesperson for Vibrant Emotional Health, the administrator of the service, told ABC News.

For the week ending Jan. 29, the LGBTQ line saw average answer rates of 80% for calls, 98% for chats and 99% for texts, according to a spokesperson for Vibrant.

Expanding access

As the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline continues to expand and increase access, Wesolowski, with NAMI, said a “critical” next step is ensuring states are developing their own plans to sustainably fund 988 long-term.

While the national answer rates across all forms of contact are up, state-by-state answer rates still vary. State answer rates in December ranged from 51% in Alabama to 98% in Rhode Island and Mississippi, according to SAMHSA.

Callers are routed based on their area code, as opposed to their physical location — still, depending on where a call is routed, the response may be different. Many of the calls not answered at the state level are sent to one of the national backup call centers to be answered, though some are still abandoned at the state level.

The Biden administration’s funding has helped strengthen the national backup network, according to SAMHSA, so fewer calls are going unanswered, but advocates said the ideal is to have callers connected to centers in their area that can provide useful follow up mental health resources.

The law that designated 988 as the three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline back in 2020 empowered states to implement fees on cell phone bills to fund the service, similarly to how 911 call centers are funded.

So far, five states have passed laws establishing such fees, and 29 states in total have passed some form of appropriations to support the 988 infrastructure, according to Wesolowski.

“Advocates are certainly pushing and having those blunt conversations that we can’t be relying on federal funding streams,” Wesolowski said. “I think one thing that we’ve really pushed with the these phone fees is that they can be flexible. They can be set in a range that is determined annually based on what the needs might be in the state for funding that year.”

Despite the need for “more work to be done,” Wesolowski said she feels encouraged by the progress the lifeline has made over the last six months.

“Everyone is working toward improving this day after day and there’s still consensus across the board that this is a priority at the federal level, at the state level, with advocates, with providers, with law enforcement,” Wesolowski said. “[It] gives me a lot of hope that we’re going to be facing a future where everyone knows 988.”

For her part, Naturale shares the hope that people will turn to 988 in times of need.

“It’s our goal to decrease suicide in this country and increase the idea that anyone — they don’t have to be in suicidal crisis — anyone experiencing mental health distress can pick up the phone,” Naturale said. “Being able to call 988 and get treatment without judgment, get interventions without judgment: That’s really our goal.”

If you are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises please call or text the new three digit code at 988. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.

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(WASHINGTON) — It appears President Joe Biden will not sit down for an interview to air on Super Bowl Sunday after all.

The White House first said Friday that Biden wanted to do this year’s interview with Fox Soul, a Fox network aimed at a Black audience, but that Fox Corp “asked for the interview to be cancelled.”

“The President was looking forward to an interview with Fox Soul to discuss the Super Bowl, the State of the Union, and critical issues impacting the everyday lives of Black Americans. We’ve been informed that Fox Corp has asked for the interview to be cancelled,” tweeted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

A Fox Corp spokesperson hours later told ABC News there was some “initial confusion” after the White House reached out to FOX Soul Thursday evening, and that they were looking forward to interviewing the president.

But a White House spokesperson told ABC News that is not the case.

“As we said earlier, we had arranged an interview with FOX Sports Host Mike Hill & Vivica A. Fox with the President ahead of the Super Bowl and Fox Corp had the interview cancelled. FOX has since put out a statement indicating the interview was rescheduled, which is inaccurate,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Fox News anchors had made clear on air over the past few days that it was the White House that hadn’t committed to making Biden available for the traditional Super Bowl interview ahead of Sunday’s big game, which Fox will broadcast.

Jean-Pierre had also declined to say if Biden would participate in the interview, telling reporters on Thursday aboard Air Force One, “I just don’t have anything to preview for you about Sunday.”

Biden did sit for interviews with the networks that hosted the Super Bowl the last two years: NBC in 2022 and CBS in 2021.

According to White House aides, the White House had agreed to an interview with two Fox Soul anchors: sports reporter Mike Hill and actress Vivica A. Fox, who has a show on Fox Soul.

While it is a tradition for presidents to grant an interview to the network broadcasting the Super Bowl, there is precedent for declining. Former President Donald Trump opted out of the interview in 2018 when NBC was airing the game.

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(NEW YORK) — Migrant apprehensions along the southwest border last month hit the lowest level since February 2021, according to new data released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Friday.

The Border Patrol arrested and detained migrants 128,410 times in January, down 42 percent from December 2022, according to CBP. Overall, authorities at the border encountered migrants 156,274 times, which includes migrants who cross at a land port of entry.

Administration officials on Friday credited the decline to recent plans involving more fast-track removals for migrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, which came along with new, yet narrow, pathways to asylum for migrants from those countries who meet certain criteria. The number of Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans stopped at the border dropped 97 percent since early January, according to CBP.

ABC News previously reported on the overall downward trend for January, which was confirmed Friday by the official tally.

Also last month, border authorities saw the lowest number of migrants from northern Central America since President Joe Biden took office. One official on Friday credited the decline to recent efforts, spearheaded by Vice President Kamala Harris, to increase public-private partnership and investments in underdeveloped regions of the Northern Triangle.

Under a court ruling, the Biden administration continues to implement a controversial public health order issued by the Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The order requires border authorities to expel large number of migrants rapidly from the border, usually in a matter of hours.

The monthly total of Title 42 apprehensions remained at one of the lowest points of the past year, despite an increase of roughly 13,000 rapid expulsions from December.

Last month, the Mexican government agreed to accept the rapid return of Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, and Cubans. Administration officials at the time said they intend to carry out these plans even if Title 42 ends. Immigration experts have said removing non-Mexicans to Mexico under standard immigration processes and outside of the emergency pandemic order would require full cooperation from Mexican authorities.

Border arrests and detainments last month remained significantly higher compared to the Trump years when monthly Border Patrol apprehensions bottomed out around 12,000 early in the former president’s term.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security is bringing in an outside law firm to help deal with any GOP-led impeachment inquiry into secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a DHS spokesperson told ABC News Friday.

“The Department of Homeland Security has retained outside counsel to help ensure the Department’s vital mission is not interrupted by the unprecedented, unjustified, and partisan impeachment efforts by some Members of Congress, who have already taken steps to initiate proceedings,” a DHS spokesperson told ABC News in a statement. “DHS will continue prioritizing its work to protect our country from terrorism, respond to natural disasters, and secure our borders while responding appropriately to the over 70 Congressional committees and subcommittees that have oversight of DHS.”

A DHS official confirmed the agency has hired the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton. The news was first reported by CNN.

House Republicans have promised impeachment articles against Mayorkas.

Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs earlier this month rolled out the articles, saying Mayorkas has “violated his oath of office, wreaking havoc on this country and he must be impeached.”

“He must be impeached because he is a public official who has lost public trust and is an imminent threat to the United States of America.”

Biggs, who previously introduced articles in 2021, said at a news conference he would be filing the articles while speaking alongside fellow conservative members, including Reps. Lauren Bobert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Bob Good, and others.

“Secretary Mayorkas has failed to faithfully uphold his oath and has instead presided over a reckless abandonment of border security and immigration enforcement, the expense of the Constitution and the security of the United States,” the articles read.

Biggs did not provide a hard timeline for when the articles would be moved forward in committee.

In response, Mayorkas told reporters he takes a “great exception” to the comments by Biggs and that he “disagrees profoundly” with some of the assertions made by Biggs.

“I take great exception to those allegations and I don’t necessarily ascribe one motive to all of them,” he said at a reporters’ roundtable at the Department of Homeland Security on Feb. 2. “I disagree profoundly with their assertion and it is my intention to see it proven successful.

“I don’t take it personally. I take my work for personally. This is this is what I do. I’ve done it for almost 23 years now.” He spoke of how the department’s work affects people “profoundly” on a daily basis — from taking criminals and other off the streets to the impact on the criminal justice system.

“I take my work personally and professionally. It’s an awesome responsibility, and it worked really hard to fulfill. I don’t take the accusations personally. I just heartily fully disagree with the assertions will not be diverted from the work that we’re doing because of it.”

Mayorkas said that he has instructed his department to comply with congressional committees conducting oversight.

He met this week with House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., who is expected to lead a fact-finding mission that may underpin a formal impeachment inquiry, according to a source familiar with the meeting.

ABC News’ Quinn Owen contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Adding to the Democratic chorus of condemnation for Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott’s proposal to “sunset” all federal legislation every five years — including Social Security — is Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

“I mean, it’s just a bad idea,” McConnell said as he spoke to Kentucky radio host Terry Meiners on Thursday. “I think it will be a challenge for him to deal with this in his own reelection in Florida, a state with more elderly people than any state in America.”

McConnell made clear Scott’s proposal isn’t being embraced by the party.

“It is clearly the Rick Scott plan. It is not the Republican plan,” McConnell said. “And that’s the view of the speaker of the House as well.”

Scott’s proposal, released last year, is back in the spotlight after President Joe Biden made it a target in his State of the Union address. Biden’s comments stoked the fiercest reaction from conservatives in the chamber, some of whom audibly booed him.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., went so far as to shout Biden was a “liar” — a comment she and other Republicans defended the next day.

Scott has defended his plan, stating he doesn’t want to cut the benefit program relied on by millions of Americans.

Under his “Rescue America” proposal, Congress would have to reauthorize legislation they want to keep funding — prompting Democrats to say Social Security would be “on the chopping block” every few years.

Biden only doubled down on the message after the State of the Union, criticizing Scott by name at an event in Wisconsin the day after.

He did so again in Florida on Thursday, when he traveled to the retirement haven (and Scott’s home state) to speak solely on the issue of Social Security and Medicare. There, he claimed it’s the Republican Party’s “dream” to cut Social Security.

“Well let me say this: If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare,” Biden said at the University of Tampa.

When asked to elaborate on what the GOP plan is for Social Security amid Biden’s blitz, McConnell told Meiners that he shares House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s view that the program is “off the table” during debt ceiling negotiations but didn’t elaborate.

“We’re in a more authoritative position to state what the position of the party is than any single senator,” McConnell said, swiping at Scott.

The two have been at odds for months, first over their differing views in the lead up to the 2022 midterms and then over Scott’s challenge to McConnell’s leadership in the wake of the GOP’s election performance.

When asked Thursday by Fox News’ Bill Hemmer about his relationship with McConnell, and whether they were “cool” with one another, Scott deflected.

“Well, he just kicked me off a committee. So, that was pretty petty,” he said, referring to his removal from the Senate Commerce Committee.

Chris Hartline, a communications consultant for Scott’s 2024 reelection campaign, shot back at McConnell’s comments about his plan for Social Security.

“Some D.C. Republicans can keep parroting Democrat lies, but that won’t stop Rick Scott from fighting for conservative principles instead of caving to Biden every day,” Hartline tweeted on Friday.

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(WASHINGTON) — Revoking the government’s decades-old approval of an abortion medication would represent a “dangerous attack” on public health, the attorneys general from 21 states and the District of Columbia told a Texas judge on Friday.

In a brief filed in the district federal court, the nearly two dozen state lawyers — each Democrats — objected to a lawsuit filed by conservatives challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s green light of the drug mifepristone more than 20 years ago.

If the judge agrees with the plaintiffs, mifepristone could no longer be prescribed for abortions, even in states where abortion is legal.

“Blocking access to this safe and effective medication is a dangerous attack on reproductive freedom and public health,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “Decades of medical and clinical research have proven that medication abortion is safe. Despite these facts and its widespread use, we know this is not a debate about science.”

The filing represents the latest legal escalation in courts over whether Americans should have access to medication abortion.

Half of abortions in the U.S. rely on medication abortion, a two-drug regimen that includes misoprostol and the tightly regulated prescription medication mifepristone.

According to the FDA, mifepristone is safe and effective if used up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. The drug was sold in Europe and China before becoming available in the U.S. in 2000, and federal officials say no serious safety concerns have emerged since then.

A 2008 congressional watchdog review found no wrongdoing in the FDA approval process involving the drug.

Still, the conservative legal group Alliance for Defending Freedom has fought for years to revoke approval of the drug on the grounds that the FDA’s approach was flawed and that regulators ignored safety concerns.

“The FDA has completely failed to protect America’s women and girls when it comes to chemical abortion drugs,” said Julie Marie Blake, senior counsel for the plaintiff in the case.

“Any court — to look at the law and to look at the science — should agree that the FDA has failed its responsibility to protect women and girls, and that it’s time to remove these drugs from the market or at a minimum to put back important safeguards on their use,” she said.

Blake said that while the lawsuit would ban mifepristone for abortion, it would still allow the drug to be used in miscarriage care and for other health reasons like Cushing’s syndrome.

If the judge agrees and revokes access to mifepristone, abortion providers say it’s likely they will turn to prescribing misoprostol only to induce an abortion. This drug, which is also used to treat stomach ulcers and is not tightly regulated, can cause an abortion without mifepristone, but is considered less effective.

Still, they say clinics already overwhelmed with patients seeking abortions will likely have to turn people away, and more patients will turn to illegal online pill sites.

“We have a lot of unknowns,” said Ashley Brink, Wichita Clinic Manager at Trust Women Kansas.

“We aren’t fully prepared for what might happen. We can only give information to people that we have at this time,” she added.

The case was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. A ruling is expected in coming weeks.

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House said Friday that a ‘high-altitude object’ has been shot down over Alaska.

President Joe Biden ordered the shootdown, spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the origin of the object has yet to be determined.

Responding to reporters’ shouted questions about the shootdown Friday afternoon outside the White House, Biden called the operation a “success.”

It comes just days after the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon last Saturday, following a political firestorm.

Kirby said the object was about the size of a small car and was at flying about 40,000 feet.

He said because it posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight, that out of an abundance of caution and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, Biden ordered the military to down the object.

ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz first reported that when fighters were scrambled, the pilots did visuals, got images and said there was no sign the object had propulsion.

It was described as “cylindrical and silver-ish gray” and seemed to be floating, a U.S. official said.

Asked if was “balloon-like,” the official said, “All I say is that it wasn’t ‘flying’ with any sort of propulsion, so if that is ‘balloon-like’ well — we just don’t have enough at this point.”

“It came in, inside our territorial waters, those waters right now are frozen, but inside territorial airspace and over territorial waters. Fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command took down the object within the last hour,” Kirby said.

“We don’t know who owns this object,” he said. The object came to U.S. attention Thursday evening, Kirby said.

It did not appear to have maneuverability capability, he said.”It was virtually at the whim of the wind.”

Fighter aircraft checked if it was manned and determined and he said it wasn’t. “We were able to get some fighter aircraft up and around it before the order to shoot it down. And the pilots’ assessment was that this was not manned.”

“It was difficult for the pilots to glean a whole lot of information,” he said, adding, “There was a limit to how much they could divine.”

Kirby told ABC’s Karen Travers Biden was briefed last night. “He was as soon — as soon as the Pentagon had enough information.”

Fighter aircraft first saw it late last night, it was a small object, and they were flying at high speed, he said. They did another flight “early this morning” to try to learn more. The flight early this morning “ended in a shootdown,” Kirby said.

Biden gave order to shoot it down Friday morning. Hew said the “predominant” reason Biden ordered it shot down was the “safety” of flights traveling at that altitude. And the fact that it was at the mercy of prevailing winds made its flight path less predictable. “And the president just wasn’t able to take that risk.”

“We do expect to be able to recover the debris since it fell not only within our territorial space, but on what we what we believe is frozen water, ” Kirby said. “So. a recovery effort will be made, and we’re hopeful that it will be successful and then we can learn a little bit more about it.”

At the Pentagon, Brig Gen. Patrick Ryder said the object was detected by ground radar. He said it was shot down at 1:45 p.m. ET.

Recovery resources are moving to the site, according to Ryder, including an HC-130, which is the search-and-rescue version of the C-130 plane, HH-60 and CH-47 aircraft.

Biden has come under fire from Republicans — and some Democrats — for not acting sooner to shoot down a Chinese surveillance balloon flying at 60,00 feet that first entered U.S. airspace over Alaska. It eventually flew over the lower 48 states before being taken out off the South Carolina coast.

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan said statement he was briefed by Pentagon officials Friday morning.

“As I’ve been doing for the past week, including in a classified briefing with senior Pentagon officials yesterday, I strongly encouraged the NORTHCOM Commander this morning to shoot down this latest unidentified intrusion into Alaska air space. I commend them for doing so today,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said the actions taken help to “re-establish deterrence” toward China.

ABC News’ Matt Seyler and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — Florida lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would give Gov. Ron DeSantis the ability to appoint a board to run Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District – the self-governing region that encompasses the company’s theme parks outside Orlando.

The bill, HB 9B, passed 26-9 in the GOP-controlled state Senate while the Republican-controlled House approved the plan Thursday in a 82-31 vote. The bill now heads to DeSantis’ desk for signing.

According to the legislation, none of the appointees to the oversight board can be recent Disney employees or have had a contractual relationship with a theme park within the past three years.

The bill would also rename the district the “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.”

Last year the state legislature passed a bill to eliminate the current district, which has granted Disney expansive authority over the area around its parks. Instead of eliminating the district, HB 9B gives the governor authority over who runs it.

The changes come after Disney publicly criticized a controversial DeSantis-backed law banning discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in certain K-12 classrooms last year.

The Parental Rights in Education Law has been dubbed by critics as “Don’t Say Gay,” while its supporters say it ensures age-inappropriate topics are kept out of class.

A Disney spokesperson, citing concerns of discrimination, said it “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.”

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of ABC News.

During the Senate floor discussion, Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo said HB 9B was brought to the floor for a vote because “someone’s feelings got hurt,” referring to DeSantis.

“I think every business that’s considering coming to Florida needs to be concerned,” Democratic Sen. Geraldine Thompson said. “I think that private businesses need to be concerned that if they exercise their First Amendment rights to speak up on an issue that they’re going to be punished by government. That’s what this is.”

Meanwhile, other state senators have sided with DeSantis.

“It was Disney’s decision to go from an apolitical safe 25,000 acres and try to be involved in public policy,” Republican Sen. Doug Broxson said.

DeSantis’ office insisted earlier this week that the changes to the district were an effort to ensure corporate accountability.

“Florida is dissolving the Corporate Kingdom and beginning a new era of accountability and transparency,” Bryan Griffin, DeSantis’ press secretary, said in a statement.

Griffin explained that the bill would end the district’s self-governing status and Disney’s exemption from state regulatory reviews.

The legislation would also keep the district’s current financial obligations in place, including outstanding debts. DeSantis has promised that neighboring Orange and Osceola counties would not be responsible for the district’s $1 billion debt despite the legal changes.

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(WASHINGTON) — The FBI is conducting a consensual search of former Vice President Mike Pence’s home in Indiana Friday following the discovery of documents with classification markings last month, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The Department of Justice had been in contact with Pence’s legal team to schedule the search and Pence’s aides agreed to it.

The FBI declined to comment, referring questions to the Justice Department. The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to comment.

Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel overseeing probes into former President Donald Trump, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ABC News Thursday.

The subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith requests documents and testimony related to the failed attempt by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election, sources told ABC News, which culminated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Classified documents were found at Pence’s Indiana home in mid-January and turned over to the FBI at the time, sources told ABC News. A lawyer for Pence conducted the search and found around a dozen documents marked as classified.

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