Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy pressed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on whether Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has experience in handling a potential threat from China.
Doocy questioned whether Americans should feel threatened by the Pentagon’s growing concerns of large Chinese-made cranes operating at American ports, which some officials have compared to a Trojan horse, The Wall Street Journal reported. Jean-Pierre referred him to the Department of Transportation, leading Doocy to question Buttigieg’s experience in handling this type of threat.
“How worried should Americans be about China spying on them here at home?” Doocy asked. “There were the Chinese spy balloons, and now there are these Chinese spy cranes, The Wall Street Journal is comparing them to Trojan horses and used at 80% of U.S. ports.”
“What the American people can be assured of is that this president is going to protect them and make sure that we put our national security first when it comes to anything that they feel could threaten them,” Jean-Pierre replied. “The president has shown that over and over again. On the cranes, I don’t have any comment on that specific reporting, I would refer you to the Department of Transportation and the Department of Defense who have been tasked by Congress to study this particular issue.”
“And if this is a Department of Transportation lead, does Secretary Buttigieg have experience?” Doocy asked.
“It’s not just the Department of Transportation, it’s also the Department of Defense,” the press secretary answered. (RELATED: Peter Doocy Asks Karine Jean-Pierre Point-Blank If Biden Admin Has ‘Confidence’ In Sec. Pete Buttigieg)
Officials worry that due to the “sophisticated sensors that can register and track the provenance and destination of containers,” they could collect information being imported and exported out of the U.S. to support military operations, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Buttigieg has come under fire over his delayed response to the toxic chemical train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that occurred on Feb. 3. The transportation secretary waited 10 days to publicly react to the disaster, and visited the site 20 days after the derailment.
Buttigieg said he “could’ve spoken out sooner” about the Transportation Department’s support for the derailment in a Feb. 21 interview.