live in the cnn newsroom. i'm jim acosta in washington. residents in and around myrtle beach are told not to collect debris from a downed chinese spy bloochblt that comes as we are getting one of the best looks yet at the shootdown of the balloon. you're looking at the footage right now. our u.s. fighter jets fired a single missile to crash the craft. right now military crews are scrambling to recover the wreckage. most of it sitting in 47 feet of water. oren lieberman is at the pentagon for us. back to the video we just got

from c infer n in the last several minutes just to highlight the clearest image yet that we have where you can see the balloon is popped, essentially, destroyed. you can clearly see what appears to know the surveillance equipment dropping very quickly into the atlantic ocean. i suppose that gives the military, the pentagon, some hope that what they are hoping to retrieve out of the atlantic is salvageable and may offer some clues as to what the chinese were up to. >> reporter: absolutely. that video is pretty incredible. it is not that close but it is pretty good quality, it is clear that missile hit the balloon itself. that's what the u.s. wants to get its hands on. this shows the payload was at least mostly intact. now, of course, it fell from

60,000 feet and then hit the water so that might have broken up quite a bit of it. but senior officials say it fell in 47 feet of water which isn't that bad as far as recovery. some of it may have broken up as it came down. but the recovery effort is underway. navy and coast guard vessels in the area. a salvage vessel is going to start pulling it out of the water and then see what intelligence you can get out of it. the technology, how they controlled it, how they operated it. all of that becomes the mission. with it already being down. noting that the intelligence side was already begun when this was in the air. the pentagon believes it was able to stop the chinese from surveilling too much with this and then flipped it around. looked at it as it was going and tried to gather as much intel about it as it was moving along. so far they believe they were successful in that effort. so it will be fascinating to learn what we can learn.

what they can tell us about what that has taught the pentagon about chinese technologies when it comes to surveillance. >> and setting aside the extraordinary thing that happened today, which is that the u.s. military shot down a piece of aircraft from a foreign super power in china. that's remarkable in and of it itself. to have it splash down and have this retrieval and recovery effort underway. this is going to be highly critical as to what is salvaged, ultimately. as part of that end of the mission. >> absolutely. that's where the real value of this comes in. there's a whole other part to this. that's the diplomatic question. how do you handle china diplomatically? they did apologize multiple times and they seem to have taken responsibility for this but the pentagon doesn't buy their explanation that this was simply a weather balloon, as they initially claimed. so that question is one part of it. the intelligence gathering and what you can learn about is it

what the pentagon will focus on and others will focus on. it does become an extraordinary opportunity, perhaps, to learn about chinese technologies. the u.s. knows there are u.s. spy satellites going overhead all the time. that doesn't mean you can look at one up close and see what kind of tech it has on it. this is a unique opportunity to see the tecum close and get a look at what they were looking for, how they controlled and it what other capabilities it may have been as it made its way over something like two-thirds of the u.s., what looked like a scenic look at the heart of america there. >> all right. i suspect when they do retrieve that, we'll find out just how much the chinese are full of hot air on this. good they're telling us it is a weather balloon, the equipment will say otherwise. thank you very much. it's been a busy afternoon at the white house. i thought it was very interesting, given all the criticism leveled against

president biden all week long. mainly from republican lawmakers who wanted to see the balloon shot down somewhere over the continental u.s. the president was very clear when he was talking to reporters earlier today that he made this call on wednesday. that this balloon was to be shot down. >> president biden was pretty emphatic that he told his military team that he wanted to see this plane shot down as soon as possible on wednesday. of course, he asked his team to develop the options that they could take to shoot down the balloon, and ultimately, he was advised against shooting it down over land. trying to minimize any risk that it could pose to american lives. ultimately, they decided to go ahead and take down that balloon as it had gone out to sea over water. now, president biden was on air force one as this operation was underway today. he was flying from syracuse, new york, to maryland, where he is spending the weekend at camp david. here's what he had to tell reporters about that operation

that the military conducted. >> on wednesday, when i was briefed on the balloon, i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible. without doing damage to anyone on the ground. we decided the best time was as it got over water. within a 12-mile limit. they successfully took it down and i want to compliment our aviators who did it and we'll have more to report on this a little later. thank you. >> what is your message to china? >> you were saying the recommendation -- >> i told them to shoot it down. >> on wednesday. >> on wednesday. they said to me, let's wait until the safest place to do it. >> so the president trying to stress that they were trying to wait and prevent any possible american lives being at risk by shooting something down over the

land. this all come as the president has faced quite a bit of criticism for not acting sooner to take down this balloon. you've heard from republicans today in the wake of this successful operation say that this has shown a sign of weakness on the part of white house in addressing china. of course, now, there are also those diplomatic concerns that the white house will have to navigate in the coming weeks and months as this has really raised tensions with china as this is all played out. >> all right, thank you. this just in to cnn. china has finally reacted to the downing of the shooting of the chinese spy balloon. mark, it took several hours for china to respond to all of this. what are they saying? >> jim, it is just after 8:00 here in hong kong. and we are receiving reaction from beijing in a very strongly

worded statement. among some of the key lines, let me read them to you. first, china expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protest against the u.s.'s use of force to attack civilian unmanned aircraft. it goes on to say, under such circumstances, the u.s. insists on using force. obviously, overreacting and seriously violating international practice. it goes on to say, china will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of companies while reserving the right to make further necessary reactions. this statement, jim, is a big shift from what we heard on friday when this first unfolded. china took almost an apologetic tone, which is very rare. now we're getting a much more aggressive response. also, very quickly, we are hearing from another player just

kind of observing from the periphery from taiwan which already has a precarious relationship with china. issued a statement early this morning that saying such actions by the chinese communist party contravene international law, breach the air space and violate their sovereignty. so all of this as we had this back drop of what was supposed to be an international diplomatic visit by secretary of state antony blinken. now, this narrative is taking a much more aggressive, almost antagonistic tone. >> yeah, marc, it sounds like they are objecting to the u.s. shooting it down. they are saying there might be some sort of reaction? is that what i'm hearing? down the road? >> yeah. that is a safe assessment. it says china will safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant companies while reserving the right to make

further necessary reactions. i was talking to an analyst very early this morning from my spot here in hong kong who brought up the point that the response from china needed to be, it needed to be somewhat swift. we're getting it, within 24 hours. that response would set the tone for future discussions, whether it would be aggressive or diplomatic. and now it is clearly taking a much more aggressive tone. >> and just one final thing. it seems to me the chinese have been insisting this is a weather balloon or a balloon doing sort of peaceful weather research. and i mean, i have to think they would know, if it is shot down and the equipment is recovered and retrieved, that the u.s. is going to learn otherwise. >> that's very fair to say. yet from the beginning, china,

even before china made the claim that this was a weather balloon gone rogue, if you will, it used very cautionary language when this first unfolded to say let's wait for the facts. let's not rush to judgment. then we get the statement about 24 hours ago saying, this is a rogue weather balloon. so it is maintaining that story. but i remember friday evening here in hong kong listening to this press conference from the pentagon and it was firm and unforgiving of china's explanation. so perhaps u.s. intelligence was able to gather a narrative of its own that it believes to be the truth. >> well, we'll learn very soon if it is retrieved from the atlantic ocean. very interesting. thank you. the spy balloon was down near the pop tourist destination of myrtle beach, north carolina. i spoke to a man who watched it

get shot out of sky. >> i've seen a lot of crazy stuff at myrtle beach. this was by far the craziest. we were at lunch and we were joking around. what if we see it? what if it is right here? what if the report is imminent. we went outside and saw the fighter jets circling around. there were three or four of them. we heard a bang and the balloon was gone. >> and about how long did all of this take? like a couple minutes? how much time went by as you watched this? >> about 15 minutes from when we walked out of the restaurant to when the balloon was going. >> people in the carolinas were carefully tracking the balloon. another witness described it as a show for the beachgoers. here's what he had to say. >> people were outside. they were in the parking lot, pulling over to the side of the

road. all the beach access. it was almost summertime here the way the beach access was packed with people. i actually went through one of the local cond minute-ups and went to the 15th floor. i knew i would have a better vantage point. so yeah. it was pretty wild. there was definitely, it was definitely a show for everybody here in myrtle beach. >> and about how long did it take for the balloon to come down after it was shot out of the sky? >> man, i don't know. it floated for a while. i would say it took -- i never saw it actually hit the water. i lost track of it once it got down so far. >> right now, navy and coast guard ships are secure in the area where the chinese spy balloon went down. we'll have much more on all those efforts next. and what will the fbi be looking for once the remnants are pulled

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we're back with the latest on the chinese spy balloon shot down by the u.s. military off the coast of south carolina. navy divers will assist as needed in recovering the balloon from the atlantic ocean. there are also unmanned vessels that can help retrieve it and bring it to the recovery ship. a senior military official says the debris is in primarily 47 feet of water. tom, walk us through where the balloon went down. how the recovery efforts may play out. we have some very clear video of what happened when it all went down. it reveals a lot. >> it really does. if you watch this go up, it gets hit, this is the really showy part. it is this part right down here that matters. that appears to be the payload dropping away. this is smoke maybe from the

rocket. also, condensation from the balloon filled with helium. that's not the important part. this is. how far did it go. this fell from above 60,000 feet. let's say it is going 120 miles an hour, which will be terminal velocity for a skydiver. might be faster than that. that would be a five-minute fall. and it would hit with a lot of force. then we know from what we've seen that it hit somewhere in this general area in here. and that is where it landed about 47 feet of water. so what is involved in the process of recovering this? 47 feet is not bad. even beginning divers can go that far. this kind of work is very pain-staking. every official report you read about underwater recovery says people underestimate how much time it will take. even though they have good weather for the next few days in that area, they'll be working on a moving surface. so the first thing is to go

survey under the water with cameras. robotic vehicles may be used because it would allow people above and even on land to survey it. they have to establish a priority list. what do they really want to keep together? this could weigh several thousand pounds. if you want to get it up carefully, what do you have to protect? then you have to figure where you're going to attach cranes to it. where you might have to use inflatable airbags to lift it. will you try to lift it all together or in separate parts? how could you get it up knowing the mas you get to the surface, the weight distribution will change, especially if any parts of it are holding water. so what they're going to have is people who are experts in this. this is not something that anyone should undertake anywhere without experience. certainly not in something as important as this. think of it as an underwater crime scene.

that's how they're going to have to treat it. as if they have to maintain and protect every bit of evidence, bring it up carefully, document it carefully. that's the only way they're going to be able to sort through the material they brought down from the sky that came from a third of the way around the world and figure out what it means. >> you're absolutely right. fascinating. this will be a pretty big undertaking. the pentagon has said, they're confident they will be able to do this. but at the same time, this will be conducted, i suppose, somewhat at night which is not going to help in these efforts. it will take some time. >> around the clock or not. it's helpful that the weather will be in their favor. >> absolutely. tom, thank you very much. that was terrific. joining us now, cnn intelligence, bob, lots of things to discuss here. we were just watching this video with tom foreman a few moments ago. we'll play it for our viewers.

and i don't know if you can see on it a monitor where you are. you can clearly see the surveillance equipment that was attached, falling away and heading toward the ocean. tom mentioned when a crash lands into the ocean, they break apart and so on. do you think there will be any usable information from this wreckage? do you think it is salvageable? what do you think? >> absolutely. even though it hit the water pretty hard, you'll be able to come up, for instance, if there were encryption devices. you can reassemble those. if there were cameras, you can tell what the resolution was like. you'll even bible to tell if technology was in the surveillance equipment. a potential gold mine. you can't get this in china, but piecing this back together, the navy, fbi, national security

agency, everybody will be looking it a, piecing it together. and you can see just how sophisticated it was. and i think there is no doubt that it had military design and military intentions. i think the pentagon is quite sure about that and i'm quite sure it was communicating back the beijing. with encryption. >> when they take it to quantico, i suppose they'll lay out the debris, what is gathered up in this wreckage and have it laying out across some large warehouse or something like that? a hangar of some sort? where they'll piece through it like a piece of an airliner that went down, or a piece of aircraft that went down? >> exactly. remember pan am 103, lockerbie, ten years ago. they were able to piece it back together, including the computer chips, the timer, everything. it takes a long time to piece it

together. the damage down at lockerbie was much worse than these pieces that went into the ocean. >> let me ask you, we were talking with our foreign correspondent about the chinese reaction to all this. and they've really shifted their tone. they were very polyjet aching couple days ago, 24 hours ago. and they've just responded by saying, they are expressing a strong dissatisfaction and protest and saying the u.s. was overreacting to what happened. >> your thoughts to how they're reacting? >> look. the chinese are not being above board. if this was lost, they could have said, hey, we lost a weather balloon. it's coming your wafrlt don't worry about it. this is what's in it. it was clearly for military intentions, this balloon. probably, i would say, and this is speculation at this point, to

look at the minute man sites in montana and where else we don't know. the chinese have been at this for years, pushing the envelope against the united states. they're doing it over costa rica right now and around the world. the chinese are not playing straight with this. i just do not believe that. >> so do they need a slap on the wrist? did the u.s., i guess, and did the u.s. have to shoot it down? >> we had to shoot it down. they're pro vvoking us. the spying in the united states, this is an existential threat. they're stealing our technology. they're operating all over the united states. silicon valley as well. and we have to push back or they're going to keep on coming back. i have no doubt about that. there is an element in beijing

which says let's go after the united states. and above all, take back tie juan which the chinese consider their sovereign territory and they'll keep pushing until we stop them. >> not that they care all that much about their credibility in the united states. if they're going to say this is just a weather balloon and then it is shot down, and he pulled the wreckage out of the ocean and it says otherwise. i suppose that secretary of state antony blinken could go right back to the chinese and say, okay, here's your weather balloon. >> exactly. we need the evidence. it the state department will produce it at some point and show what was on that balloon. and it won't be for benign purposes. i think before the white house made the decision to shoot it down, the evidence was overwhelming. this was a military balloon. a spy balloon. why would they use a spy

balloon? they're satellites. as we were talking about, there are cyber intrusions and that sort of thing. they've been doing that for years. yl a balloon? >> well, why when i came in, we were using balloons to drop sensors. we would love to have a balloon over where they test their nuclear weapons. but we don't. we're not provoking the chinese. these balloons are technologically advanced. way beyond satellites in many aspects. how far this would go is far beyond anything. >> we were talking to james clapper and he was saying this bloonl was likely doing more than taking pictures. that there are other capabilities the chinese might

have with this spy balloon. perhaps in the area of signal intelligence and that sort of thing. what do you think they might have been doing other than taking pictures? they can take pictures with satellite. >> yeah, they can. the resolution is very good and the pictures are good. low-power manipulations you can't pick up from a satellite. the lower altitude. also, if they're making any changes in those bases, they're done when the chinese satellites are not overhead. we do that all the time. if we're going to move things around, you wait. so if they have three or four days over one of these sites, they can get a good view of it. it's not a game changer. if you're sending a message to washington, we're going to spy out. we know what you're doing. one of these balloons is very effective. >> all right. very interesting. great to see you. thank you for your time.

we appreciate it. a number of people are asking, why china would send this bloalloon over the united states? what a congressman told us about that very question. live in the cnn newsroom. ♪ ♪ it's what sanctuary could look like... feel like... sound like... even smell like. more on that soon. ♪ ♪ the best part? the prequel is pretty sweet too. ♪ ♪ ever get a sign the universe is trying to tell you something? the clues are all around us! not that one. that's the one. university of phoenix, you could earn you master's degree in less than a year for under $11k. learn more at phoenix.edu.

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the chinese spy balloon across the u.s. ended in spectacular fashion today shot down by u.s. fighter jets. earlier today i spoke with mike quigley who served eight years on the house intelligence committee. he said this move by china is a head-scratcher, as he put it. >> to a large extent, it doesn't make sense at this time. clearly both nations are attempting to normalize relations with presidents meeting. now secretary blinken meeting

with his counter part. it is conceivable that somehow the chinese president wasn't aware. but the timing of this, it doesn't minimize the severity and the brazen attempts to surveil our country, putting in perspective the fact that there are low-earth chinese satellites surveilling all these areas, almost on an hourly basis. so all of that is extraordinarily serious. it has to be mitigated against. it is why the healthy intelligence community is so important. but just so much of this doesn't make sense to happen at this particular time. >> how important do you think it is to get this equipment out of the water and analyze it? we're told when they do recover this balloon, and whatever surviving equipment remains, that it will be taken to quantico and examined?

>> i agree with my colleague, the ranking member, it is better to recover this and analyze it and see what we might learn about what the capabilities there are and how the chinese are attempting to do this, rather than spread over a long, long debris field. it made sense to not shoot this down until it was over the united states territory. >> and it sound like the pentagon was taking it very seriously. defense secretary lloyd austin said the balloon was being used to surveil strategic sites in the united states, in the continental united states. how concerning is that? i think it is just as concerning go that the satellites are up there. i think the only thing that might have been accidental was the president of china may not have known of the timing. no. there's deliberate spying taking place by the chinese government.

in january, a grad student was sentenced to jail for six years in chicago for spying on our sciences, our academics. this is a very intense effort by the chinese to spy on our government and our private sector, our military. this is important. all i'm saying is it just doesn't make sense that it is happening at this particular time with this brazen an effort, when they're trying to normalize relations. the concern would be that it is important for us to normalize these relations, and this is going to send us in the exact opposite direction. it doesn't benefit either country. it's a horrible mistake by the chinese at this time. >> have you ever heard of anything like this happening before? all your years on the intelligence committee? the chinese sending a spy balloon over the u.s.? >> the chinese have sent

balloons over the u.s. properties. it has happened before. so we're aware of this. doing it over, directly the middle of the continental united states? we're trying to understand this. what most, most spying would be an attempt at covert in nature. this is something which i think every person is aware of. it is not particularly effective. so look. we're concerned about this. we're concerned about the surveillance efforts. all i'm adding to the equation is that i think the chinese made an historically difficult and silly mistake at an extremely bad time. so we have to mitigate against all the efforts the chinese government is making to go surveil our government. and it is obviously human intelligence, signal intelligence. this is just one every american has been made aware of. >> what about these criticisms

from republican lawmakers who are saying this balloon should have been shot down sooner than this? in montana in a sparsely populated area. something of that kind. do you agree this was a good decision to allow to it float over the u.s. until it could be shot down off the coast? >> sure. this is flying at least twice the height of normal commercial aircraft. sometimes three to four times that. so who will do the calculus of when you actually shoot this down, how far it will travel before it lands somewhere? and it is very likely that there's a lot of very heavy equipment in this. so i think what you do in the proper course of action was to mitigate against the surveillance taking place. the department of defense talked about it and they're quate capable. it has a lot of experience. once it gets into an area where

it doesn't hurt americans, you shoot it down and collect what you possibly can. >> our thanks to the congressman for joining us. in the meantime, what could china be trying to accomplish? that's next. ♪ my name is austin james. as a musician living with diabetes, fingersticks can be a real challenge. that's why i use the eestyle libre 2 system. finwith a painless, aone-second scan, i know my glucose numbers without fingersticks. now, i managing my diabetes better, and i've lowered my a1c from 8.2 to 6.7. take the mystery out of managing your diabetes

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and help communities thrive. earlier this hour we mentioned how china has issued a strongly worded protest for the u.s. military shooting down its spy balloon after it crossed over much of north america this week. beijing says the u.s. is overreacting and seriously violating international practice. here's part of the chinese statement. china expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protests the use of force to attack unmanned aircraft. china has inform the u.s. side that it is for civilian use and entered the u.s. due to an uncontrollable event. china goes on to say, it was, quote, completely an accident.

china maintains the balloon's purpose was purely scientific and mostly for weather research. john joins us to talk about it. a professor of chinese studies in seoul, south korea. the chinese are saying the u.s. overreacted here. that this balloon was purely for scientific and weather research. what do you make of all this? >> well, it's pretty hard to believe the official line coming out of beijing. i mean, one of the obvious questions is why they didn't alert the u.s. government that this was happening in the first place. that would have been the simplest way to nip this in the bud. the fact they didn't make that communication and it has to be discovered and become a 24-hour balloon watch sort of undermines china's argument. but there is a question of diplomacy. how will the two sides discuss

this? i'm anticipating at the media level, china will stick with this narrative and double down on it and try to drum up outrage against the americans for shooting down their innocent civilian airship. so this can just contribute sort of one more piece to the deterioration of the relationship which we've been seeing for years now. >> and what is china's motivation? why would they fly a spy balloon over the u.s.? >> well, at a general level, it doesn't seem like a great mystery to me. let's be honest. the united states is spying on china and china is spying on the united states. and that's again a function of something that governments generally do to one another. but also, it is an increasing part of the u.s.-china relationship because government to government relations are souring. we've just seen a trip canceled,

and the relationship is becoming adversarial if not hostile. so the relationship expands as the other part narrows and contracts. what is mysterious about it is the detectability. this giant balloon. and the timing is strange. i don't have the answer. i haven't really heard a compelling explanation of why the chinese would do this at this time. again, it's the kind of question i would like secretary blinken asking in person to his counterparts. >> to that point, yeah. let me ask you. i spoke to congressman adam smith who sits on the armed services committee, a democrat, this afternoon. he said secretary of state antony blinken should have gone ahead with this trip and met with the chinese president xi jinping and confronted him about this. what do you think is best at this point? >> well, i thought it was quick

to cancel the trip. everything was still playing out. and at this point, the united states is quite legitimately and lawfully downed this chinese property. i would love to see secretary blinken bringing it back after it's been examined or just have the conversation while it is in u.s. possession to say, what are you up to? this is, of course, an embarrassment to the chinese government and to xi jinping. it is a global embarrassment. it is a good time the talk. there is a little high ground the united states has. we do have to keep the big picture in mind. this is a $600 billion trade relationship. we are the two biggest car been emitters on the planet. there is a whole range of issues that we have to keep a dialogue about. whether we'll compete or

cooperate. and the problem is something like this, if it is allowed to cut off the dialogue, then we're going to see regression on all these other issues thatt are of great concerns to the chinese and americans and everyone. there's a whole list of things they need to figure out how to at least co-exist or cooperate on. >> yeah. well, china and tuesday are communicating by other means, you would say. thank you very much for your time. really appreciate it. >> once the balloon is recovered, if it is recovered, what might the u.s. be able to learn from it? that's next. mind. it's simple. anything else i c can help you with? like w what? visionworks. see the differerence.

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>> wreckage recovered from the chinese spy balloon, if it's recovered, that u.s. fighter jet shot down into the atlantic ocean and on the coast today will be taken to an fbi lab for analysis. an official tells cnn the fbi will be working with the defense department and counter intelligence employees. josh campbell, former fbi agent, joins us now. this is going to be fascinating to see this untowed. i imagine they're going to be taking the debris and going through it piece by piece? >> yeah, that's right. and jim, to the extent that this intelligence collection apparatus survived the shoot down, what the fbi would be looking for is trying to determine what was this thing collecting and then trying to recreate and reconstruct what this device was. this was a potential intelligence goldmine if this did survive that shoot down.

you know what makes sense to me as a former fbi agent? someone who has worked with the fbi laboratory? why the fbi would be the location this would go? this will be a multi agency operation. you often think about dna forensic analysis, firearm analysis, but there's an entire division call the operational technology division. these are the technical wizards that are responsible for assistance with offensive intelligence collection. we help with court authorized surveillance ance that the fbi does and help the fbi intelligence community defeat foreign penetration. that makes sense to me. second, there is no better agency in the world that is, you know, better at actually looking back and reconstructing something and determining what happened in a particular instance, and then the third thing that i think is important to remember is that this won't just be the fbi. it will be the defense department. there will be other intelligence agencies as welch there's also a very public component to this as well. there will be a public accountability component. we've already heard a number of politicians, you know,

criticizing the white house. why wasn't something done sooner? so i expect that we will probably see some type of call for, you know, some type of public report. what did the fbi find? what was actually on this balloon? so that would make sense to me why the fbi would lead the effort rather than the nsa or cia agencies that don't like to be out there in the public realm. certainly a lot of work to be done. we'll have to wait and see what these analysts actually uncover. >> all right. it's going to be very interesting to see this unfold over the next several days. it could be sometime, josh campbell, as you are quite aware of these types of federal investigations with multiple agencies. they do take some time. josh campbell, thank you very much. we appreciate it. and thank you for joining me this evening. i'm see you here tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern. a special edition of situation room with wolf blitzer is up next. the continual coverage of the chinese sky balloon continues. have a good night.

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>> i'm wolf blitzer in washington. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is a special edition of the situation room. and happening now, we're just getting in new images right now of a u.s. fighter jet firing a single missile to take down the chinese spy balloon right