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Amid the fog of war, the White House has denied that any threat from Iranian drone attacks on the West Coast ever existed, despite a mainstream report suggesting such a possibility, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) remarks that potential drone threats are “top of mind.”
“They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on X.
She continued, “The email even states the tip was based on *unverified* intelligence. Yet ABC News left out this critical fact in their story! WHY? TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did.”
As reported by RSBN, this initial report circulated after ABC published an alleged FBI alert warning police departments in California about the potential threat of Iranian drone attacks.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., also noted during an interview this week with KCRA3 that “drone issues have been, always, top of mind,” confirming he was aware of the information and working with the State Operations Center to disseminate such alerts to “local partners.”
Iranian drones have indeed been “top of mind” amid Operation Epic Fury, as this entire conflict has been fought via aerial attacks and drone attacks. However, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, confirmed earlier this week that Iran’s missile capabilities and one-way drone attacks had degraded by 90 percent and 83 percent, respectively, from the onset of the mission.
For an Iranian drone to realistically reach the West Coast, it would have to be launched from a location much closer than the Middle East, presumably from a naval vessel floating just offshore.
As of Wednesday, the president said that the U.S. military had sunk 60 Iranian Navy vessels, so it does indeed seem unlikely that Iran, with its depleted naval fleet, could even get close enough to California to launch any kind of an attack against the homeland.