House speaker moves to reassure public over ‘serious national security threat’: Live updates

Republican House speaker Mike Johnson has moved to reassure Americans that “there is no need for public alarm” after House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner called on President Joe Biden to declassify information about a “serious national security threat.”

“I saw Chairman Turner’s statement on the issue and I want to assure the American people, there is no need for public alarm,” Mr Johnson told reporters in the Capitol on Wednesday.

“We are going to work together to address this matter, as we do all sensitive matters that are classified.

“We just want to assure everyone: steady hands are at the wheel, we’re working on it, and there’s no need for alarm.”

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters this week that he is scheduled to host a briefing with the Gang of Eight — the party leaders and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees — and admitted that doing so was “highly unusual”.

The exact nature of the threat is classified but two sources cited by ABC News have described it as emanating from Russia and involving plans to potentially use space-based nuclear weapons for anti-satellite purposes.

Hard-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has said British foreign secretary Lord Cameron “can kiss my a**” after he urged Congress to pass aid to Ukraine and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, citing the appeasement of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the lead-up to the Second World War.

Gustaf Kilander has more.

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