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National Security Council’s John Kirby on how the U.S. might respond to deadly attack in Jordan
After Sunday’s drone attack on an American military oupost in the Middle East killed three U.S. service members and left dozens more injured, a top Biden administration official said the U.S. “absolutely” will do what’s necessary for its defense. But he also emphasized that staving off wider regional conflict is a priority.
“We are not interested in a broader conflict in the region, we’re not looking for another war, but we absolutely will do what we have to do to protect ourselves,” John Kirby, a spokesperson for the National Security Council at the White House, said in an interview Monday on “CBS Mornings.”
Kirby’s comments came as escalating assaults on U.S. forces stationed around the Middle East, in the wake of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, drive concerns about the involvement of Iran and its proxies. On Sunday, three U.S. troops were killed and at least 34 more suffered injuries when an aerial drone strike hit an American military base in northeastern Jordan, close to the Syrian border, the U.S. military and President Biden said. Jordan is a U.S. ally.
Mr. Biden said in a statement issued after the attack that “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq” were behind it, and noted that the U.S. “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing.”
Planet Labs PBC / AP
The strike appears to be the deadliest attack on U.S. service members since 13 Americans were killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul in 2021, as U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan.
It happened before dawn at a U.S. military outpost called Tower 22, where around 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel are stationed, according to the Department of Defense. The troops who were killed and wounded were in their barracks, “and given the hour, most likely, many if not all of them were in their beds,” said Kirby.
“We think this was a single drone attack,” he said, adding that U.S. officials were still “trying to get more information” about exactly what happened. Kirby noted that the number of injuries linked to the attack could potentially rise, “for instance, if some of them experience concussive symptoms, which would suggest maybe traumatic brain injury.”
This is only the most recent attack believed to involve Iran-backed militant groups since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been attacking ships in the Red Sea, and in response, the U.S. began carrying out airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen last month. Houthi militants launched a missile toward a U.S. warship, the USS Carney, on Friday.
Republicans in Congress called on the Biden administration to retaliate against Iran in the aftermath of the attack on Tower 22, with House Speaker Mike Johnson saying the U.S. “must send a crystal clear message across the globe that attacks on our troops will not be tolerated.” Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “Hit Iran now. … Hit them hard.”
Kirby told “CBS Mornings” that he did not have any new steps to announce at this time.
“The president has added force capability to the Middle East,” Kirby said. “I don’t have any force posture changes to announce today, but I can assure you that he’ll make the decisions as commander in chief as appropriate, to make sure we can continue to defend ourselves.”
He also acknowledged Iran’s “destabilizing behavior.”
“I would tell you that we are certainly mindful of the destabilizing behavior in actions of Iran, the way they support these groups, these militia groups, Syria, the maritime attacks that they’re permitting by the Houthis,” Kirby said. “We’re mindful of the destabilizing behavior and the influence that they have in the region.”
The White House said Mr. Biden was briefed on the attack after it happened Sunday morning and met with administration officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, later in the day.
At an event in South Carolina on Sunday afternoon, the president said, “We lost three brave soldiers in an attack on one of our bases. And I’m asking for a moment of silence for all three of our fallen soldiers. And we shall respond.”
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Throughout Election Day and night, CBS News’ Confirmed team will be fact checking reports of threats around voting today, voter fraud, election hacking, and more as the nation votes and waits to see whether Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States., CBS News’ full coverage of the election is here.
False: Elon Musk claimed Google intentionally manipulating search results in favor of Harris
X owner Elon Musk posted, then deleted, a screen recording comparing the Google searches. The post reached over 2.5 million views before its removal, with other posts garnering thousands of views.
Details: Google said searches for “where to vote for Harris” yielded a polling location map because Harris is also the name of a county in Texas, not because of bias for the Democratic candidate.
Searching for “where to vote for Trump” returned news articles and standard search results, while “where to vote for Vance” produced a similar polling locations map because Vance is the name of a county in North Carolina.
Google adjusted its algorithm Tuesday to prevent candidate-related queries from returning polling maps. Google trends data show that searching “where to vote” is a much more common query than searching where to vote for either Trump or Harris.
By Julia Ingram and Layla Ferris
False: Social media posts claim Milwaukee mayor, a Democrat, said the city’s votes would not be counted on election night
On X, users claimed that the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee said at a news conference that Milwaukee would not be counting ballots tonight.
Details: Votes in Milwaukee will be tabulated tonight despite posts on the social media platform X that have pushed a false claim that Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said votes in the city won’t be counted on election night.
In reality, vote counting started Tuesday morning and will continue late into Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning at the city’s so-called “central count” location, according to Johnson’s communications director, Jeff Fleming.
“They’ve already started tabulating, and had tabulated thousands of ballots by this afternoon,” Fleming said. “The vote totals exceeded our original projections, so the workload at central count is higher than expected.”
Milwaukee’s votes can take longer to count for several reasons, Barry Burden, Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center, said.
“It’s the biggest city, and it has the most ballots, and it also counts absentee ballots at a central location,” Burden said. “That’ll be after midnight, 1 (a.m.) or 2 a.m.”
The city’s more than 200 election workers started counting votes at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, Fleming said. They’ll continue the tabulation overnight, and ballots will be delivered to county clerks either the next day or the day after, depending on local rules.
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Spreadsheet error corrected: GOP U.S. House candidate says Harris County, Texas, early vote results showed big drops and spikes in early voting
U.S. House candidate Caroline Kane, a Republican running in Texas’ 7th District, posted on X Monday that Harris County’s early vote results showed significant drops and spikes in the number of early voters for several voting locations between Sunday and Monday, which should not be possible.
Details: Election officials said a misaligned spreadsheet caused the publicly reported early vote totals in Harris County to appear incorrectly. Local officials have corrected the document posted online by Kane. They noted the spreadsheet was labeled “unofficial” and said the error would not impact the official vote tally.
In a statement, the Office of the Harris County Clerk said, “In the process of updating the daily record of early vote totals for two vote centers (Baytown Community Center and Mission Bend Center), the formatting of the spreadsheet inadvertently misaligned, causing cells to shift and reflect incorrect numbers for other locations. Our office is aware and is actively working to correct the report.”
“I assure you that every vote that was cast will be accurately tallied,” the statement from the clerk’s office concluded.
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Software malfunction prevented some voters from scanning ballots in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Voting hours extended to 10 p.m. in the county.
Details: Local courts have extended voting hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Cambria County, Pennsylvania after local officials said a “software malfunction” prevented voters from scanning their ballots early Tuesday morning.
Voters are using paper ballots as technicians review the issue.
“All votes will be counted and we continue to encourage everyone to vote,” the county commissioner’s office said in a press release.
According to the county’s petition to extend voting hours, the malfunction “caused voter confusion, long lines of voters, and many individuals left the polling locations without casting a ballot.
“The Pennsylvania Department of State said it is in contact with Cambria County and is “committed to ensuring a free, fair, safe, and secure election.”
Cambria County, located in southwestern Pennsylvania, has a population of approximately 131,000. Trump won the county 68% to 31% in 2020, and he won by a similar margin in 2016.
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False: Non-citizens encouraged to vote in Philadelphia
Conservative commentator James O’Keefe claimed non-citizens are being encouraged to vote in Philadelphia.
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The video received 1.6 million views on X as of Tuesday, and was reposted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who said it was “the smoking gun of attempted election theft.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein said the report was incorrect and non-citizens are not eligible to vote in Philadelphia. ITINs are for tax purposes and not linked to voting eligibility. Ceiba called O’Keefe’s claims “unfounded and based on harmful stereotypes.”
By Joanne Stocker and Emmet Lyons