Two weeks after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon and one week after President Biden directed the military to shoot down three more unidentified objects, America is still gripped by questions over what the objects were and why they were flying at a height that posed a risk to air traffic.

President Biden on Thursday delivered his most extensive remarks to date on the situation, in which he all but ruled out that the three unidentified objects were part of the Chinese balloon program or that they were a foreign intelligence-gathering effort.

But with officials still unable to collect the debris from the latest downed objects, there is still much more to be learned about to whom, what their purpose was and how they ended up in a position to be shot down.

Who owns the objects?

Biden backed the intelligence assessment from his National Security Council that the unidentified flying objects (UFOs) were “most likely” related to a private company or research institution, but did not go further to explain the conclusion.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was able to detect the UFOs after tuning its radars to scan for the objects, which were flying at an elevation of 40,000 feet or below and posed a threat to civilian aviation.

Guy Gratton, an associate professor of aviation and the environment at the United Kingdom’s Cranfield University, said hundreds of weather balloons go up across the world every day.

But it would be “irresponsible” to send them up to around 40,000 feet, where they can interfere with air traffic, Gratton explained.

“There are some really interesting questions about why they would be there,” he said. “Because you really do not want those floating around where passenger aircraft are flying.”

Some lawmakers have raised questions about the UFOs being benign or commercial, asking why no company or institution has come forward to claim them. One hobbyist group has said a balloon went missing around the time of the shoot-downs.

The tweaking of radars has raised questions on what the administration’s response will be to unknown objects zipping around the sky, considering they may start detecting more of them.

The White House announced an interagency task force this week to outline how the administration will respond to future UFOs.

How was information shared publicly?

The latter three UFO takedowns were followed by a vacuum of information, which bred conspiracy theories and uncertainty in the public. While White House and Pentagon officials spoke to reporters daily in the aftermath of the three objects being shot down, there was a limited amount of information available at the time.

A Pentagon official on Sunday said they could not rule out extraterrestrial life related to the three objects, a notion the White House refuted a day later. And for a time, so little was known about the UFOs that officials could only describe them as “objects” without getting more specific.

Natalie Baker, an associate professor studying national security strategy and how society responds to existential threats at the National War College, said it was important for the administration to consider a more careful approach in the future, given they may not be able to reveal a plethora of information quickly.

“It’s important for us to better understand how to relay information to the public,” Baker said. “That fosters trust, because there’s a lack of trust in the government by the public and I think situations like that reveal this issue.”

The president on Thursday made clear that while it is still unknown what the three objects shot down last week were, “nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country.”

Biden added that he made “no apologies” for shooting down the Chinese balloon. Administration officials have said they were able to predict the balloon’s path and protect sensitive military sites, and argued that by waiting to take it down until it was over water, they were able to prevent property damage and injuries.

The administration’s ability to definitively rule out a connection to China’s spy balloon program came days after Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told USA Today that the three unidentified objects were “almost certainly a case of the Chinese trying to come up with new or creative ways to spy on us.”

What exactly were the later 3 objects?

The object shot down over Lake Huron in Michigan on Sunday appeared to be an octagonal object, and the one shot down over the waters of Alaska was the size of a small car.

Gratton, the aviation professor from Cranfield University, said some balloons could reach the size of a small car as they float upward. 

And while balloons are generally round and not octagonal, it’s also possible the pilot who identified the octagonal shape above Lake Huron saw it through a camera lens that distorted his perception of it, according to Gratton.

Details are even murkier on the object taken out over Canada’s Yukon. Canadian Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre said in a Wednesday Twitter thread the UFO was a suspected balloon.

Eyre described the retrieval efforts as “challenging in the remote, mountainous area with deep snow, risk of avalanche, and harsh weather conditions.”

An Illinois-based hobbyist group, the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, wrote in a now widely circulated blog post that one of its balloons had gone missing around the time the objects were shot down. A member of the group told Politico on Friday that they believe the object shot down over the Yukon could be their balloon.

John Kirby, a national security spokesperson at the White House, said Friday that he was unable to confirm reports that the hobbyist group might be connected to the object, and he said no organization has come forward to claim ownership of any of the objects.

A lot of mysterious flying objects do turn out to be weather balloons, said Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation subcommittee who chaired the first congressional hearing on UFOs in 50 years last spring.

But Carson added that the UFOs shot down last weekend may not be “completely benign.”

“There’s a lot of work that we are going to do,” Carson told WTHR 13 News on Tuesday. “The issue of [unidentified aerial phenomena] will continue to come up. We can’t make rash judgements until we have all of the information.”

Kirby on Friday acknowledged that some questions about the objects may remain a mystery indefinitely. He noted that one balloon was shot down over frozen sea ice, another was over the wilderness of the Yukon, and the third landed in Lake Huron.

“It’s going to be very difficult to find them, let alone once you find that debris be able to do the forensics to identify it,” Kirby said. “So I can’t promise you that we’ll know definitively one way or another.”

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Feb 17, 2023 (The Expresswire) -- “Military Aircraft Market” report providing exclusive statistical data including historic status, share size growth, demand. For Military Aircraft Market progressive expansion, it provides complete landscape with including regional segmentation and leading company’s status. It covers complete outline to break different problems comes in business development such as Covide-19 Impact. The global Military Aircraft Market report is witness huge growth, in comparison to 2021, at growing CAGR during 2027.

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Feb 16, 2023 (The Expresswire) -- Pre and Post-Covid Report Is Covered | Final Report Will Add the Analysis of the Impact of Russia-Ukraine War and COVID-19 on the Private Military Services Industry.

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More job opportunities may be opening up — and more quickly — for spouses of service members stationed overseas.

The Air Force and Navy have implemented a new pilot program for locations outside the United States that allows Department of Defense organizations to hire qualified military spouses more quickly for certain civil service positions, outside the competitive hiring process.

Information was not available from the Army or the Marine Corps about the status of their programs.

A number of DoD organizations already prioritize hiring military spouses, and officials say this direct-hire authority will cut two weeks or more out of the hiring process for spouses. Defense Commissary Agency officials expect to have their plans and instructions ready for their overseas hiring managers within 30 days, said DeCA spokesman Kevin Robinson. And the Department of Defense Education Activity is using the program for the positions that qualify, said DoDEA spokesman Will Griffin.

The unemployment rate for military spouses hovers around 21%, affecting the family’s financial and overall well-being. Over the years, defense and service officials, as well as private groups, have worked on a number of initiatives to help spouses find meaningful employment, especially portable jobs that can move with them during their many relocations with their service member. Moving overseas often brings even more difficulty for spouses to find jobs.

“We recognize that spouse employment is a fundamental quality of life issue for our airmen and guardians, especially for families in overseas locations,” said John Carbone, director for civilian force management for Air Force Manpower, Personnel and Services, in announcing the start of the service’s pilot program.

“We’re hoping having access to this new hiring authority will open up greater opportunities for spouses, which in turn will positively impact military retention, the financial well-being of the family, and Department of the Air Force readiness,” Carbone said.

The direct-hire authority applies to General Schedule (GS) and Wage Grade (WG) competitive services positions within DoD components that are permanently located outside the United States, and in Grades 15 and below or the equivalent. Merit factors are the basis for selecting individuals for positions.

According to DoD guidance implementing the program, which Congress authorized in the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, here are some details about the program and eligibility:

♦ Spouses must be authorized to accompany their service member to the duty location on permanent change of station orders at government expense.

♦ Spouses must reside with the service member in the same local commuting area of the member’s duty assignment.

♦ Spouses must be applying for a position within that local commuting area.

♦ The ongoing DoD Military Spouse Preference Program is separate from this appointing authority.

♦ Appointments using this direct-hire authority are made on a time-limited basis, not to exceed two years. But the appointment may be extended for two additional terms of no more than two years each, for a total of six years.

♦ Appointments will end when the term expires, at the end of the service member’s tour of duty, or in the event of divorce from or death of the sponsor.

♦ If the service member is relocated to another location outside the United States in a permanent change of station, the spouse may be eligible for a new appointment to another position using this direct-hire authority.

♦ Appointments using this authority can’t be made after Dec. 31, 2026, when the pilot program ends, unless future law extends the program.

Defense Commissary Agency

Defense Commissary Agency officials are drafting plans and instructions for using the new hiring authority, said Kevin Robinson, spokesman for the agency. Officials anticipate that using this program will cut out an average of 14 days in the hiring process because of the elimination of the need to have public notice, Robinson said.

The commissary puts priority on hiring spouses, Robinson said. More than 3,440 military spouses work for DeCA — nearly 31% of its nearly 11,200 civilian employees, he said.

“DeCA is always looking for ways to hire spouses, especially if it means getting them on board more quickly. This new program will let us accomplish this goal more efficiently,” he said. “We actually have a great program to retain military spouses once hired, and we will continue to leverage that approach as we hire even more spouses in the future.”

Since public notice of the positions is not required, applicants don’t have to go to USA Jobs to apply, he said. “Our managers can select spouses they wish to hire by just submitting a request for personnel action with the required information/documents attached, along with an authorized vacancy,” Robinson said, adding that forthcoming guidance will outline the process for consistency at all overseas locations.

Department of Defense Education Activity

Department of Defense Education Activity officials are using the new pilot program for General Schedule and Wage Grade competitive service positions. The job offer can be made two to four weeks earlier than through a traditional announcement-based recruitment, said DoDEA spokesman Will Griffin. Military spouses will apply directly to the hiring manager at the location when a specific vacancy is posted locally by the hiring manager, Griffin said. If hiring managers need to expand the hiring pool, they can also request a direct-hire authority announcement through the USA Staffing system, he said.

But the new pilot program doesn’t apply to teacher or educational aide positions, which are in the Excepted Service, and are the majority of DoDEA positions overseas. DoDEA applies military spouse preference to the hiring of teachers, and appoints overseas spouses to positions with specified time limitations that may be converted to permanent positions after two years. The new hiring authority is one hiring source available to supervisors along with other non-competitive and competitive sources open to military spouses, Griffin said.

DoDEA has established open continuous announcements for Excepted Service education aide positions overseas that are only open to those eligible for military spouse preference and certain other preferences, he said.

Military spouses are nearly 20% of the DoDEA work force, Griffin said.

North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile into the sea off Japan’s west coast after warning of a strong response to upcoming military drills by South Korea and the United States.

Japanese authorities said the missile plunged into waters on Saturday inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), more than an hour after it was launched, suggesting the weapon was one of Pyongyang’s largest missiles.

“North Korea fires an unidentified ballistic missile into [the] East Sea,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.

Denouncing the launch as a “clear breach of UN Security Council resolutions”, the joint chiefs of staff said the missile had flown about 900km (560 miles) before splashing into the sea.

Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that North Korea fired an “ICBM-class ballistic missile” to the east, referring to long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles that Pyongyang has increasingly tested.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the missile appeared to have landed “within Japan’s EEZ, west of Hokkaido”.
“It is an escalating provocation against the international community as a whole, and naturally we severely lodged a protest against it,” he added.

Japanese officials said there were no immediate reports of damage to ships or aeroplanes.

South Korean officials, meanwhile, said the “presumed long-range missile” was launched from the Sunan area near Pyongyang. Sunan is the site of the Pyongyang International Airport, where North Korea has conducted most of its latest ICBM tests.

Following Saturday’s launch, South Korea’s National Security Council convened a meeting and agreed to increase cooperation on security with Washington and Japan.

The US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that US commitments to the defence of Japan and South Korea “remain ironclad”.

“While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to US personnel, or territory, or to our allies, we will continue to monitor the situation,” the statement added.

The White House strongly condemned the launch and said it would take all necessary measures to protect the US homeland and regional allies.

The launch “needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, said in a statement.

The launch came a day after North Korea’s foreign ministry threatened to take “unprecedentedly” strong action against South Korea after it announced planned military exercises.

The North Korean statement on Friday accused Washington and Seoul of planning more than 20 rounds of military drills this year, including large-scale field exercises, and described its rivals as “the arch-criminals deliberately disrupting regional peace and stability”.

The US tabletop exercise, scheduled for Wednesday, would set up possible scenarios in which North Korea uses nuclear weapons and would explore how to cope with them militarily and formulate crisis management plans, South Korea’s defence ministry has said.

“With a focus on North Korea’s nuclear threats, both sides will have in-depth discussions on various measures to strengthen US extended deterrence, including information sharing and consultation procedures,” the ministry said in a statement.

Heo Tae-keun, South Korea’s deputy minister of national defence policy, also told legislators on Friday the two countries would hold joint field exercises in mid-March that would be bigger than those held in the past few years. The exercises are expected to include live-fire drills.

The latest launch followed a record year for North Korean weapons demonstrations, with Pyongyang firing more than 70 ballistic missiles, including ICBMs with the potential range to reach the US mainland.

North Korea has also conducted several launches it described as simulated nuclear attacks against South Korean and US targets, while passing a law that declared the country an “irreversibly” nuclear state.

Al Jazeera’s defence editor Alex Gatopoulos said that these missiles were real weapons tests that are increasing in sophistication.

“The missile did not travel that far, but it travelled extremely high – fourteen times higher than an ISS. It is an effective weapon that can deliver possibly a nuclear weapon if they so decide.”

The increased activity from Pyongyang has met ramped-up joint military drills from South Korea and key allies.

That followed a scaled-back period amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a fruitless diplomatic offensive by former US President Donald Trump.

Some 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in an armistice rather than a full peace treaty, leaving the countries technically still at war.

Saturday’s launch marked the first detected from North Korea since January 1.

Last November, a missile fired by Pyongyang was also believed to have landed in Japan’s EEZ.

© KEVIN LAMARQUE (Reuters) Following a series of incidents in which the US military shot down ‘objects’ from the sky, the White House has outlined its response.

President Joe Biden gave a speech from the White House on Thursday to outline his administration’s response to the unidentified objects shot down in latest days. At the start of February a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down, followed by three unidentified objects last weekend.

The President confirmed that there is no evidence to suggest that the three objects shot down in the past week were connected to China’s spy balloon activity.

“We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were but nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country,” Biden said on Thursday, giving his first public remarks on the ‘object’ situation.

“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.”

What did Biden say about UFOs?

Officials have steered clear of using the term UFO, or even the more often used ‘UAP’ (unidentified aerial phenomena), simply describing them as “objects” in public. Biden continued that trend on Thursday and added that his administration were still working to identify the nature of the objects shot down.

The three most latest incidents are thought to have been benign, and Biden dismissed the suggestion that there may have been “a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky.”

However he added: “If any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people, I will take it down,” and promised to introduce “sharper rules for how we will deal with these unidentified objects moving forward.”

Biden pledges “to compete” with China

This spate of aerial incidents was sparked by the identification of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon flying over northern parts of the United States and Canada. It came at a time of heightened tensions between the US and China, with the latter currently exerting territorial claims over the democratic nation of Taiwan.

Beijing has claimed that the balloon shot down was a device for civilian surveillance of the Chinese population, insisting that it was blown off course and into US airspace.

However officials in the US have dismissed that suggestion and are currently investigating the debris recovered after it was shot down. The White House has confirmed that investigations have recovered important surveillance technology from the balloon, with Biden saying that the discoveries will “strengthen our capabilities”.

The President ended the press conference with an effort to cool tensions. He told reporters that the US wanted “competition, not conflict, with China.”

“We’re not looking for a new Cold War,” Biden said. “We will compete and will we responsibly manage that competition so that it doesn’t veer into conflict.”

On Thursday, the US State Department issued a "Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy," calling for ethical and responsible deployment of AI in military operations among nations that develop them. The document sets out 12 best practices for the development of military AI capabilities and emphasizes human accountability.

The declaration coincides with the US taking part in an international summit on responsible use of military AI in The Hague, Netherlands. Reuters called the conference "the first of its kind." At the summit, US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control Bonnie Jenkins said, "We invite all states to join us in implementing international norms, as it pertains to military development and use of AI" and autonomous weapons.

In a preamble, the US declaration outlines that an increasing number of countries are developing military AI capabilities that may include the use of autonomous systems. This trend has raised concerns about the potential risks of using such technologies, especially when it comes to complying with international humanitarian law.

Military use of AI can and should be ethical, responsible, and enhance international security. Use of AI in armed conflict must be in accord with applicable international humanitarian law, including its fundamental principles. Military use of AI capabilities needs to be accountable, including through such use during military operations within a responsible human chain of command and control. A principled approach to the military use of AI should include careful consideration of risks and benefits, and it should also minimize unintended bias and accidents. States should take appropriate measures to ensure the responsible development, deployment, and use of their military AI capabilities, including those enabling autonomous systems.

The 12 best practices listed in the document touch on nuclear weapons safety, responsible system design, personnel training, and auditing methodologies for military AI capabilities. The document also highlights the need to minimize unintended bias and accidents and the importance of testing to ensure the safety and effectiveness of military AI capabilities.

The document contains a few notable examples of keeping accountable humans in the chain of command when it comes to autonomous systems, especially regarding nuclear weapons: "States should maintain human control and involvement for all actions critical to informing and executing sovereign decisions concerning nuclear weapons employment."

It also covered unintended behavior of AI in military systems, something that has become a concern recently with consumer deep-learning systems: "States should design and engineer military AI capabilities so that they possess the ability to detect and avoid unintended consequences and the ability to disengage or deactivate deployed systems that demonstrate unintended behavior."

The document does not specify exactly what type of autonomous or AI-powered systems are covered by the declaration, but since there is no universal definition of "artificial intelligence," it lays out its understanding of the term in a footnote. The document states, "For the purposes of this Declaration, artificial intelligence may be understood to refer to the ability of machines to perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence—for example, recognizing patterns, learning from experience, drawing conclusions, making predictions, or taking action—whether digitally or as the smart software behind autonomous physical systems."

Also on Thursday, more than 60 nations signed a "call to action" endorsing the responsible military use of AI. Reuters reports that human rights experts and academics noted that the statement is not legally binding and "failed to address concerns like AI-guided drones, 'slaughterbots' that could kill with no human intervention, or the risk that an AI could escalate a military conflict."

The full declaration document, created under the authority of the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, is available through the US Department of State website.

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 latest 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.

Separately, however, the Biden administration said they aren't ready to be as definitive as Schumer.

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told ABC News on Sunday that "these objects did not closely resemble and were much smaller than the [suspected Chinese spy] balloon and we will not definitively characterize them until we can recover the debris, which we are working on."

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.

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.

ABC News' Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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