>> goose bumps, i get goose bumps every time there is a flyover at a game, and normally like you are celebrating the all women stuff is so cool, but these were badass women. >> they should have not said it was all women and then on the field and celebrated, oh, wow, women. >> i love everything pro military, nothing wrong with men either. good for them. >> thanks, everyone. don't forget to dvr the show. now comes "america reports," i'll see you on "the story." >> sandra: piles of trash, filthy streets have businesses suffering, including the restaurant owner owned by lady gaga's father. who has just about had it, he says, with his hometown. >> john: does he have any hope mayor adams will bring the big apple out of the shadow? we'll speak to joe germita on the state of the city coming up.

>> i think the biden administration needs to provide more transparency. >> i have real concerns where the administration is not more forthcoming with everything it knows. >> the department of defense left me in the dark 18 hours. >> stop briefing congress through the television sets and actually brief us. >> sandra:is ale demanding answers, this as we await a white house press briefing. a live look inside the briefing room, any minute now, john kirby and karine, and we wait to hear from the commander in chaff on the issue. >> john: great to be with you, let's hope they are from the terrestrial adversaries, the

alternative could be troubling. four objects shot down, three since friday, the three new ones are smaller than the chinese spy craft that was shot down last week but no indication where the new objects might be from. >> sandra: fox team coverage kicks off now, keith kellogg and jacqui heinrich are standing by. jennifer griffin is live at the pentagon for us. the u.s. is accused of flying balloons across china? >> across the air space, at least ten times since the start of 2022. a spokesperson for the national security council says those accusations are patently false, adding it is china that is operating spy balloons over 40 countries across five continents. the u.s. military and recovering

teams have not yet been able to reach the high altitude object shot down off the alaska coast because of conditions, it could be time before we get access and know what was shot down. u.s. officials said the reason the last three objects were shot down is they were flying much lower than the chinese spy balloon, close to 20,000 feet. the first object on sunday popped up over montana, not far from sensitive u.s. missile bases on saturday. it disappeared, and then reappeared in michigan and shot down by an f-16 over lake hurricane. the head of norad was asked whether these were simply weather balloons. >> are they weather balloons? >> we are calling them objects for a reason. i'm not able to categorize how they stay aloft.

it could be a gaseous type balloon or some type of propulsion system. >> the u.s. war planes sent to ob jefsh -- objects were flying too fast, gave conflicting descriptions. the u.s. homeland defense adjusted radar widening the aperture. >> we have adjusted some of those gates to give us better fidelity on seeing smaller objects. also filter out by altitude w. some adjustments we have been able to get a better categorization of radar tracks now and that's why you are seeing these overall, plus a heightened alert to look for this information. >> but 24 hours later the pentagon does not know what it shot down over the weekend.

6 to 8,000 high altitude balloons are in the skies each day, the military checked with nasa, noah, google earth and others to see if they were their balloons before shooting them. no evidence as of yet they came from china. sandra. >> sandra: we hope to learn more very shortly here, with that briefing happening shortly at the white house. thank you. >> john: as we await the white house briefing, now a bipartisan call for the biden administration to be more transparent in its handling of all of this. jacqui heinrich is live at the white house and jacqui, these jets that shot these objects down all have gun cameras, releasing that video might be a start in transparency. >> might be a start, john, but of course people would love to hear from president biden directly. the president does not have any events on his public schedule, meaning we won't be able to shout questions at him as he is passing us or going about the activities of his day.

there will be a press briefing here shortly, we do expect the national security council spokesman, john kirby, to be part of the briefing as well. with the u.s. shooting down three objects just since friday, all over north america, people are clamoring for answers. >> we have not been able to gain access to the three shot down friday, saturday and yesterday, in large part because of the weather conditions, and the third one yesterday was shot down over lake huron, and as soon as we do that well learn more about them and absolutely share what we can learn with the american people. >> as he went to church this weekend, reporters tried to get the president to comment on this but he did not respond. pentagon says there are many differences between the initial spy balloon and these objects. the first was at 60,000 feet, about the size of a regional jet and had the ability to maneuver on its own. officials said for those reasons they let it cross the u.s. before shooting it down over open water so as not to endanger the people below.

these other objects were flying under that threshold so they were shot down, lawmakers new say causes policy questions, like over 60,000 feet, a pass, automatically shoot it out of the sky below 60,000 feet, and officials have said there is no indication right now that these recent objects, the three of them, were conducting any surveillance, but they have not explained all of the reasons why that is. they also were asked if they could rule out aliens or extra terrestrials, they are not able to rule out aliens on the front end. we are looking forward to the answers we will get today, john. >> john: before we entertain an h.g. wells fantasy, might be worth asking if we can see the gun camera video.

saw plenty in iraq and afghanistan. jacqui heinrich, thank you. sandra. >> sandra: retired lieutenant general keith kellogg. thanks for your time, we'll keep an eye on the briefing room and john kirby. what would be your question to him right now? >> thanks for having me. the first question to john kirby, and i was chief of staff with the nes, why hasn't -- why haven't you, one, released gun tape we can see and why hasn't the president talked about it. it's ok to say we don't know but we will find out and give us time to run it down. and the fact nobody is talking about it actually raises more questions than you need to have. and if we are good at shootings things down and weapons free, if we are trying to figure out what these are, let it drift further to get it in a place we can recover it, like land.

instead of in the water or nearby prudhoe bay, tough to recover that far north. there are so many questions, like an agatha christie novel, nobody knows. and my concern is china, they are using low tech and high-tech on us, and we don't have balloons. the four years i was in the white house, we don't have balloon technology that does that. we only have noaa weather balloons. but china does, it can be very, very effective. when you have it, the altitude, you can actually pick up a lot of communications intelligence, signals intelligence, and can get pretty good video feed as well. so it's a confusing question that needs to be asked what's happening out there, at least tell us a little bit 'til you get the full data. it's ok to do that. >> sandra: the bomb about the latest one, the one on friday

that was announced, it happened during these hours and it was sort of sandwiched in between a press conference from john kirby at the white house, it was a regular briefing until that moment. maybe there is another object or two, we just don't know. we'll certainly carry his remarks live. timeline of the objects shot down, let's deal with what we know of at this hour. you obviously have the first object shot down february 4th off the coast of south carolina. the second object, go to very northern tip of alaska, the second object was shot down. saturday, the third object, sunday the fourth object. are you able to -- are you able to determine anything looking at the timeline, the geographic location of these by looking at that map? >> you know, sandra, that's a great question. maybe another question i would ask john kirby, what are the

rules of engagement, what are these so different you went weapons free with the fighters to knock these down. is there something you are not telling us from the first spy craft to believe there is something happening with the other objects in the sky. why one set of conditions and then another set of conditions. what's driving that. we don't know, because nobody is answering the mail. nobody is asking the questions -- >> i think on friday he said they took that one down because it was posing an immediate risk to commercial air space. >> sandra, you find the easy answer to take people off the deck. if you answer this way, maybe no follow-on questions. easy to give the answer. ok, john and i talked about the aircraft over the polar route but saying ok, this is the reason we did it, but a lot of others that fly out there we have not taken down.

the question is what's your criteria, what are your rules of engagement for engaging these and going weapons free on the fighters. they have not said that, but probably a good question to ask. >> sandra: at a very minimum, you would think they could at least lay that out for the american people should this happen again soon, we would know what would determine taking one down. general keith kellogg, thank you very much for joining us as we await the briefing. john, i just want -- if we have it ready, this was kirby in a new interview this morning. on shutting down the chinese reports that the u.s. is now using balloons over china. this was kirby. >> not true, not doing it. just absolutely not true. >> the u.s., let me push you further then, the u.s. is not using balloons technology over china? >> that's right. we are not flying balloons over china, absolutely true.

>> and we don't have that at all, we don't have that balloons. >> john: i saw the super bowl teaser for u-two live at the sphere and thought i wonder, just wonder. senator john cornyn and more later on today, we have a big show today. >> sandra: indeed, and huge questions swirling, and anything could happen. like i said, john, we were covering live on the air on a friday afternoon, heading into super bowl weekend and giving the briefing like any other time from the white house and boom. >> john: we'll see if he buries the lead to the same degree he did on friday. fox news alert, a u-haul truck hitting eight people on a sidewalk in brooklyn's bay ridge neighborhood. the driver ran into a police car, the suspect is in custody. alexis mcadams is at the scene.

>> i was just told by two sources a few minutes ago they believe the suspect made some statements telling them he did it on purpose, driving on to the sidewalk in brooklyn, and injuring eight people according to the fdny. and bay ridge, unfolded after 11:00 this morning, 5th avenue and bay ridge parkway, a lot of shops and stores and residential areas. investigators are telling us the driver purposecally drove up on the sidewalk, and hit a 30-year-old walking, and three men on mopeds, and the suspect was taken into custody a short time after it unfolded. the nypd arrested the driver. no word on charges he'll be facing. we'll be awaiting for a briefing momentarily.

investigators stopped him before he went into a tunnel back to manhattan, so they had to work quickly. presser is starting soon and the mayor of new york says there are no other threats at this time. we'll keep an eye on it, john. >> john: all right, we'll hear back from you soon. alexis, thank you. sandra. >> sandra: we'll be watching for that. meanwhile, as we have mentioned, moments away from the briefing at the white house with the press secretary and john kirby. we'll take you there as soon as that is underway. we expect reporters to be pressing both of them on these latest objects shot out of the sky, john. >> john: a transgender center in a missouri children's hospital under investigation by the state's attorney general. the shocking claims from one whistleblower that have parents outraged. >> sandra: plus, a jury shake-up as covid hit the alec murdaugh double murder trial. and up until now, little physical evidence tying murdaugh to the murders.

could new testimony help seal the deal for the prosecution. we'll ask phil holloway when he joins us live next. car loans can be expensive and the payments high. consolidate that car loan into a newday home loan and save hundreds every month. life... doesn't stop for diabetes. be ready for every moment, with glucerna. it's the number one doctor recommended brand that is scientifically designed to help manage your blood sugar. live every moment. glucerna. postmenopausal women with hr+ her2- metastatic breast cancer are living longer with kisqali. so, long live family time. long live dreams. and long live you. kisqali is a pill proven to help women live longer when taken with an aromatase inhibitor. and kisqali helps preserve quality of life. so you're not just living, you're living well. kisqali can cause lung problems

or an abnormal heartbeat which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. avoid grapefruit during treatment. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain, a change in your heartbeat, dizziness, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills, or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. long live hugs and kisses. ask about kisqali. and long live life.

hi, i'm lauren, i lost 67 pounds on golo. i got picked on as a child. it really got to me, so i tried everything there was. golo and release has definitely shown me that there is hope out there. all across the country, people are working hard to build a better future. so we're hard at work, . ve financial freedom. we're investing for our clients in the projects that power our economy. from the plains to the coasts, we help americans invest for their future. and help communities thrive.

business can happen anytime, anywhere. so help yours thrive and stay connected with the comcast business complete connectivity solution. it's the largest, fastest, reliable network. advanced gig speed wifi. and cyberthreat protection. starting at just $49.99 a month. plus, you can save up to 60% a year when you add comcast business mobile. or, ask how to get up to a $750 prepaid card. complete connectivity. one solution, for wherever business takes you. comcast business. powering possibilities.

>> john: a live look at the white house where admiral john kirby, we just heard from karine

jean-pierre say there is absolutely no evidence that extra terrestrials or any type of aliens from off world are responsible for this. so let's hear what kirby has to say. >> i do have quite a few comments at the top, so i hope you will just bear with me and then be happy to take whatever questions you might have. so i would like to begin today by updating you on our efforts to recover the debris of several objects the united states air force shot down over the last few days, as well as that of the spy balloon belonging to the people's republic of china and put into some context for you how we have worked and are still working to better understand the issue of high altitude, low speed craft. let me start with the chinese program. when president biden came into office he directed the u.s. intelligence community to do a broad assessment of chinese intelligence capabilities and ensure we were working to detect

and protect against them. i think for reasons you will all understand we cannot publicly go into many details how we discover and counteract foreign intelligence collection efforts. much of what we have done and are doing is, of course, sensitive. but we were able to determine that china has a high altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that's connected to the people's liberation army. it was operating during the previous administration but they did not detect it. we detected it. we tracked it. and we have been carefully studying it to learn as much as we can. we know that these prc surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of countries on multiple continents around the world, including some of our closest allies and partners. we assessed that at this time these balloons have provided limited additive capabilities to the prc other intelligence

platforms used over the united states. but in the future if the prc continues to advance this technology, it certainly could become more valuable to them. the president also instructed the intelligence committee to look at the phenomenon of unidentified flying objects. the first ever daily intelligence briefing session devoted to this phenomenon in june of 2021. he was briefed it's not just an issue for the you state but one for the rest of the world, and as i said, our friends and our partners are dealing with this as well. we worked on a bipartisan basis to stand up an office at the pentagon to study this in partnership with the intelligence community, academic institutions and the private sector. it has been reported for many years without explanation or deep examination by the government. president biden has changed all that. we are finally trying to

understand them better. now, in light of the chinese balloon program and the recent incursion into our air space the united states and canada through norad have been more closely scrutinizing that air space, including enhancing our radar capabilities, which as the commander of north com and norad said may at least partially explain the increase in the objects that have been detected. slow moving objects at high altitude with a small radar cross section are difficult to detect on radar. even objects the size of the chinese spy balloon, a payload of roughly the size of three school busses were not picked up by previous administration's or other countries. we also know a range of entities, including countries, company, research and academic organizations operate objects at these altitudes for purposes not nefarious at all, including scientific research. that said, we have not been able

to definitively assess what the most recent objects are, we acted out of abundance of caution to protect the security, our security, our interest and flight safety. and saturday's case, we acted in consultation with the canadian government, the president speaking personally with prime minister trudeau. the spy balloon was of course different because we knew where that was. as we have said, we do not assess the most recent objects posed any direct threat to people on the ground and we are laser focussed on confirming their nature and purpose, including through intensive efforts to collect debris in the remote locations where they have fallen. in each instance, we have followed the same basic course. we assessed whether they posed any kinetic threat to people on the ground, they did not. we assessed whether they were sending any communication signals, we detected none. we looked to see whether they

were maneuvering or had propulsion capabilities, saw no signs of that, and made sure to determine whether or not they were manned, they were not. we did, however, assess that their altitudes were considerably lower than the chinese high altitude balloon and did pose a threat to commercial air traffic and no reason to suspect they were conducting surveillance of any kind, we could not rule that out. that is why the president, at the recommendation of the secretary of defense, norad commander gave order to shoot them down. missions were completed successfully and safely. efforts are actively underway right now at all sites to find what is left of those objects so we can better understand and communicate with the american people what they are. i think it's important to remind the objects in alaska and canada are in pretty remote terrain. ice and wilderness.

all of that making it difficult to find them in winter weather. the object over lake huron now lies in what is probably very deep water. so outside of recovery operations, what are we doing? well, first we are continuing to monitor. there are no active tracks today but the professionals at norad will continue to do their important work. secondly, we are consulting with allies and the challenge of identified aerial phenomenon and how we can all work together to deal with that challenge. the president has directed the secretary of state, secretary of defense, and the director of national intelligence to engage with their relevant counterparts to share information and to try to gain their perspectives as well. again, this is an issue that affects everybody around the world. third, brief members of congress and relevant state leadership on what we are doing and what we learn.

the president has made this a very top priority. we have over the course of the last few days and certainly over the course of last week reached out to inform and brief members of congress and relevant state governors of the operations we were conducting and the recovery operations underway. we have also kept congress briefed generally on this issue of chinese surveillance balloons, including classified briefings last august and last week administration officials provided classified briefings for all senators and all members of the house of representatives on the p rc surveillance balloon. we anticipate and support the ability to continue the briefings in the days ahead. and fourth, the president has directed an interagency team to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis and disposition of aerial objects that pose safety or security risks. every element of the government

will understand and mitigate these events. i'm happy to take some questions. >> john, if the objects don't pose a military threat and they don't pose a threat to anybody on the ground, why shoot them down, particularly because the military has -- is routinely monitoring radar, you know, radar blips and such. >> i kind of covered that in the opening statement. two real reasons here. first there was a very real potential risk to civilian air traffic. the ones shot down on saturday -- i'm sorry, yesterday, was about 20,000 feet, and the two shot down friday and saturday were at about 40,000 feet, and as you know, trans continental air traffic is roughly 30,000 feet, it depends on weather. and so because we assessed they were not manned and were not being controlled, therefore left to atmospheric conditions, the real risk to safety of flight was a problem. the second purpose, and i talked

about this earlier too, even though we had no indications that any of these three objects were surveilling, we could not rule that out, so err on the side of safety protecting the national security ob -- interest, and they could have gone over military or sensitive sites. out of abundance of caution, the president, with the recommendation of military leaders, directed them to be put down. >> because it's so unprecedented, should the president be hearing directly on this? >> we have been -- i think as transparent as we can be. i won't speak to the personal speaking schedule, but he has been deeply engaged in every one of these decisions. he's been kept informed, including as of this morning on

what's going on with recovery efforts, and he's very much staying on top of the issue and directing his team to make sure we are properly consulting and briefing not just members of congress but state leaders as well, and we are also doing what we can in the public sphere. >> wait a second, sir, excuse me. thank you, john. what is the president's standard going to be going forward when he orders an unidentified object shot down? >> it comes down to one simple formulation, and that's if at the recommendation of his military leaders he believes the safety and security of the united states, safety and security of the american people, his prime responsibility, warrant that kind of a decision. >> so it's possible we could see the shootdowns on a regular basis like over the weekend? >> i don't think it's useful to get ahead of where we are, the president will side on the safety and security of the

american people. >> you said we are not flying any surveillance balloons over china. are we flying other kind of surveillance craft over china. >> we are not, i'm not aware of any other craft that we are flying over into chinese air space. >> finally, can you tell us anything more about this octagonal object, how big was it? >> we are still trying to assess what that was. i'm not going to get into a description, i've seen the press reports about what it looked like. i think we all need to be humble here in terms of what our ability is to positively identify stuff from fighter aircraft that are going several hundred miles an hour past essentially in terms of relative motion, a stationary object that was not very big. so we don't know what this exactly looked like and again, we are still not sure exactly what the purpose of it was, or who owned it, but we hope to be

able to find out more once we can recover debris from that and the other two as well. >> just a few minutes ago prime minister trudeau said there is some sort of pattern to the objects over the past few days. is that something you can elaborate on that, what kind of pattern the white house is seeing? >> i'm not familiar with the prime minister's comments, i don't know if i should take a swing at that. these objects were not being maneuvered, they did not appear to have any self-propulsion, so the likely hypothesis is they were being moved by the prevailing winds and maybe perhaps that's what the prime minister was talking about. i don't want to speak for him. but certainly as the prevailing winds, particularly at that altitude go west to east across the north american air space, i mean -- there was a general common movement in that regard. >> you spoke at the top about kind of reassessing radar, given what happened with the initial

balloon. can you give us a sense, can we expect -- should we assume this is the regular number of the objects over the united states, they have always been there and have not been looked at the same way or any reason to expect this is more than usual flying? >> two thoughts. i think -- i think we can all get our heads around the fact that there are sometimes things floating at high altitudes for various purposes, like i said, scientific research, weather balloons, all manner of innocuous craft can be aloft at high altitudes. i don't think that's necessarily unusual here. it's difficult for me to say exactly what you can expect going forward. one of the reasons that we think we are seeing more is because we are looking for more. as you heard general vanherck

mention, they have modified the filters and the gains as we call it of the radar capabilities to look more discreetly at high altitude, small radar cross section, and low speed objects and so if you do that, anybody that's operated a radar will know you can set -- you can set the parameters and if you set the parameters to look for a certain something, it's more likely you are going to find a certain something. >> given all you've discussed here and the actions the administration is taking and what people have learned, chinese spy balloon this year, previous years, unidentified objects shoot down, they might have a question when it comes to these higher altitudes are america's borders secure. >> the president takes as i said earlier, he takes our national security extremely seriously. he has no higher responsibility

than the safety and security of the american people. and i don't think you need to look any further, quite frankly, than the decisions he's made in just the last week to ten days to evidence that. >> it feels like he's plugging holes, like these are vulnerabilities we are discovering in realtime. >> you are making an assumption, i don't know the analysis will bear out. >> thank you very much. the president gave the order to shoot down the object over lake huron yesterday. where was he, what kind of information did he have when he gave the order, what was briefed to him. >> he was here in the white house, he was kept constantly informed by his national security team and the military. he have made that decision, i could not give you the exact time on the clock but it was i believe mid to late morning, and then it was executed in the afternoon. >> were there continuously in place a reaction in case there

was a foreign government reaction to shooting the object down. >> the one yesterday? >> the one yesterday. >> it was shot over -- shot over lake huron and landed in what we believe to be the canadian side of the lake, so we were obviously in constant communication and consultation with our canadian counterparts and they are rightly because of where we think it splashed down, they are sort of in concert with the u.s. coast guard and also involved trying to locate the debris right now. good communication with our canadian allies. >> was a foreign government taking a special interest in that yesterday, reacting? >> no. >> two questions, one, you mentioned early on that the china balloon might have been given limited capabilities -- assume meaning satellite surveillance. can you specify what, what exactly it's getting from a

balloon that they are not getting from orbiting satellites that go over us dozens of times? >> the caveat we have not recovered everything, but we have recovered some things from the bottom of the atlantic and analyzing that. with the caveat we don't know exactly what this balloon was surveilling or what its capabilities were. just in general, and important caveat i would like you to remember, when you are at a lower altitude than space, you could perhaps get a better fidelity of imagery, for instance, of things on the ground. when you are not moving at the speed of a satellite, and therefore you know, only getting seconds over a site, when you can maneuver, left, right, slow down, speed up, like this thing could, then you can loiter, and if you can loiter, you can soak

in a little bit more. you can spend more time over a sensitive site. >> some of the satellites are in geo station orbit, just sitting there, so what is the benefit -- >> i would rather not go into more detail than that right now. we are going to learn more and frankly it's a terrific question, you should be asking beijing. >> and one last one, you said the other objects shot down were not able to transmit or were not transmitting signals, that they did not have any propulsion. did the china balloon -- was it emitting signals back? >> i'm not going to go into more detail about the capabilities of that. we are going to study and analyze it. no question in our minds that that system was designed to surveil, that that was an intelligence asset. i'll leave it there. >> has there been any outreach from anywhere in the

administration to the kinds of companies that produce weather balloons or other craft that would fit these descriptions that might be from the commercial or corporate world to say is this yours or any kind of outreach or have you been hearing from anyone who might say we have ours, they are in this area, is any of that going on now? >> i don't know of any conversations right now, kelly, but one of the reasons why the president directed mr. sullivan to put together an interagency effort, to learn a little better who is up at that altitude doing what for completely legitimate purposes. we need a better sight picture on that and the president wants to arrange to take a look. >> what kind of intelligence in terms of the diplomacy going on if these are state-owned objects. >> i'm not sure i understand what you mean.

>> is there a network of conversations that might be happening where someone might be able to say based on this octagonal description, so and so -- >> short answer is yes, and i talked about that in the opening statement. the president also directed secretary blinken, secretary austin, director haynes to have these conversations with allies and partners around the world, and their perspective. >> quick to say it was ours but for commercial purposes. >> we will have those conversations with the allies and partners to see what kind of experiences they have had, what we can learn from them, what perhaps they can learn from us. >> are we still with object or can we call them balloons? >> still with object. and i won't mess that up today. >> corporate angle, any

expectation it's going to affect the executive order on surveilling the u.s. companies and what they are doing in china? >> i know of no such change to that. >> and just, you said a moment ago there is no knowledge of a u.s. balloon or other craft over chinese territory, cognizant of the fact that china has a different definition of what their territory is than the united states, is there any surveillance aircraft over taiwan, the south china sea, that would fit into that. >> there is no u.s. surveillance aircraft over chinese -- in chinese air space. >> even chinese-claimed air space. >> no u.s. surveillance aircraft in chinese air space. >> finally, is there any new formal approach that's being developed as far as how you are going to deal with these on a systematic basis going forward. >> well, again, that's exactly what the president wants mr. sullivan to run is the process

to help as i said in my opening statement, get around the policy implications and whether or not there needs to be any policy changes going forward. >> [inaudible] taking down objects over u.s. territory as far as i'm aware of, you talked about the tweak in the radar systems, is there a tweak in the threshold for the pentagon presenting to the president, the president signing off on military action related to anything over our air space? >> i'm not sure i'm following what you mean. >> in the wake of the chinese spy balloon, the radars were tweaked, why you think you are seeing some of these things. has the decision about, or has the threshold for the use of fighters to take down objects also been tweaked, has it been lowered, changed, we have never seen this before, and -- now in three days -- >> i'm sorry i did not understand it at first and you heard the general talk about it last night, he's using

established protocols to engage craft in the air, aircraft in the air that can be legitimately brought down, and as he said last night, the best way to do that, certainly in a timely and efficient effective way was through fighter aircraft and the side winder air to air missiles. and they looked at, and he talked about this, looked at other options to try to bring them down to include gunfire, but that would have presented a greater risk to the pilots themselves. so this was the safest, most effective way to do that. now, where we go from here, i think we just don't know right now in terms of whether there needs to be threshold changes as you put it. i think it's important to just take a step back here and what the president did was ordered these actions with the safety and security of the american people foremost in his mind, and there were very good reasons to do it. the military then, once given an

order, determines how they are going to execute that order, the general decided the best way was with side winder missiles and fighter aircraft. >> this is not reactive to the chinese spy balloon, there was political pressure so we are going to act quickly to take down any objects over our air space because of the pressure from the republican -- >> these were decisions based purely and simply on what was in the best interest of the american people. >> john, does the u.s. government have video or imagery of these latest intercepts and will you guys be releasing it? >> you have to talk to the dod jacqui about that, i don't know what imagery might exist and they would be the ones to talk about whether it's releaseable or not. obviously certainly with respect to the spy balloon we want to make sure that we are gleaning what we can from this imagery so

we can answer your questions better, and so to what degree there is or will -- will or will not be public release, i do want to stress that we are going to want to make sure that we have had a chance to analyze that imagery as much as ourselves. >> and following up on phil's question, what we are trying to discern, you said earlier we are looking for these, finding more -- >> i said it could be one reason why we are finding more. >> what we are getting at is why are we all of a sudden shooting them down and to add to that, you know, norad commander, for instance, said that when the first spy balloon was crossing over american and canadian air space, one of the reasons he could not take action, his assessment, it did not pose a military threat or have hostile intent so he could not take action there. seems like maybe that protocol has changed or his ability to make that call where there is not an imminent threat militarily or physically might

have changed. so, can you explain to us what changed, why are we shooting them down all of a sudden? >> i kind of feel like i took care of that in my opening statement but happy to revisit it. really, two reasons here, and these are certainly in -- well, in both cases they are different. we need to separate the chinese spy balloon, we knew what it was, we knew where it was going, we knew what it was trying to do and by not taking it down, i mean, that was also a huge payload. like i said, the size of three school busses. so the option of shooting that down over land was not an option, somebody could have gotten hurt, and we used the time to study it, collect it on and take it down over the water and hang on a second, i'll be

right there. but so let's separate that from the other three. these other three, what are some of the differences. altitude is a big difference. >> threshold now, risk to civilian aircraft? >> let me get through this. altitude is different. the chinese spy balloon was at 60,000 plus, well outside commercial air traffic concerns. these three were right on the border of it. so there was a legitimate concern there. chinese spy balloon, we knew exactly what that thing was and knew what it was trying to do, and we saw it, jacqui, as it slowed down, sped up, maneuvered a little bit, trying to get a look at sensitive military sites. the other there were, they were driven by the wind. we don't think -- we don't know for sure whether they had a surveillance aspect but cannot

rule it out. enough uncertainty there out of abundance of caution, doing the prudent thing, the president directed they get taken down and i get where you are going, is this the standard going forward and we are going to dive into this, we are going to learn from these three events, we are going to continue to study what happened, we are going to have an interagency effort to get around the policy implications and see where it goes. you have to do the right thing for the american people, for safety and security. >> no one claimed these yet as theirs? >> i can't say whether it's strange or not since we are in unchartered territory here, no pun intended, but we don't know and i suspect -- >> i'm basically done. basically done. >> has the payload been recovered from south carolina yet? >> the -- >> the large so-called payload. >> as i said, some of the

debris, certainly they were able to take things off the surface like the next day, actually that afternoon, some of the balloon fabric and recovered some, not all, of the payload that sank to the bottom of the atlantic. 45 feet of water, and weather conditions are tough, today they have not been able to dive on it but over the course of the weekend they were able to raise some debris, including some electronics and some of the structure. >> do you have an expectation of when all that payload is going to be collected? >> i don't. if i could tell you that, i would be a very wealthy man. it could take a long time, given the sea state and weather conditions and the degree we have to protect the safety of the divers. >> one last question. you said you are unsure of the surveillance capabilities.

last week we were told every precaution was told to make sure the sensitive installations were covered, don't know what you did. >> nor are you going to find out. >> well, has there been a posture change nationwide regarding all of these sensitive sites? >> if you are -- >> proactively. >> you are -- let me just put a fork in this. if the implication is that, you know, there's some sort of blanket now security policy for every base on the continental united states, the answer is no. we do have protocols, particularly when we know that surveillance is going to occur, like in the open skies treaty with russia, for instance. when all that is scheduled and laid out and you know there's going to be an open skies flight by russia, you take the appropriate actions, and that's what we did in the case of the chinese spy balloon and will always do that. i will never talk about what

precautions we are going to make at any given base or any given time but do what we need to do to protect our nation's secrets. i won't talk about it any more than that. >> way in the back, way in the back. >> thank you very much. >> no, no, right there. >> you started the briefing talking about the president's involvement in this. and a report from od and i report, it says there were 247 unidentified aerial phenomenon since march of 2021, some "demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities." can you say why the president just recently within the last couple weeks started ordering some of these objects to be shot down and why there weren't any orders throughout 2021 or throughout 2022? >> it's very simple. it comes down to what sort of safety and security threats and

risk we are talking about. and also it comes down to our ability to track, detect and engage. having come from the pentagon, i can tell you that some of these uaps, while we may not be able to know what each and every one is doing, some of the big concern there was that many of those reports were happening around our training ranges, happening around air training ranges, so combat pilots were seeing these things and there was potential impact to the safety of flight of our pilots, but you may not have but a fleeting moment on some of these things to see it. and so it's different, and these cases we had time to detect, time to analyze, time to engage, time to make those kinds of decisions. but it all comes down to safety

and security, first and foremost. >> the time matter is a capability, better capabilities now than back then? >> we are certainly improving our capabilities now and as i said, the president has directed the national security team to dig into this deeper from an interagency effort and what other improvements might need to make. look, just by adapting the way the radar parameters are set, we have improved our ability to detect. and could be one reason why we are seeing more. >> so you said that debris pattern on the frozen waters are in remote areas and also not huge objects and shot down by missiles. how optimistic are you that you will be able to collect enough debris to really get an idea what the objects were. >> we won't know until we are on-site to see, how much damage was done, not just by the missile strike but by the fall

from very high altitude, and as you said, in one case on sea ice, we'll have to see. >> thank you, john. the secretary of state blinken, does he plan to meet with his chinese counterpart this week to the munich security conference? >> i don't have visibility on that. >> and what have you been able to learn more, or not you, but the government since these objects were shot down, i mean, you just alluded to the fact that you have not been able to get on-site yet. has there been any additional information since one was shot down friday and over the weekend? >> because these have just happened over the last few days and have not found the debris, a lot more we expect to learn and once we get to the debris, i'm not forecasting how easy that's going to be. they all three have fallen into some pretty remote difficult areas to reach, but we are going to do everything we can to find them and that will tell us a

lot. since, i know you did not ask about this, but in the case of the chinese spy balloon, we have been able to recover some debris and some electronics and some of the structure from the bottom of the atlantic and that will tell us a lot and learning from it right now. >> we have to get everybody, no, no, everybody -- go ahead. guys, everybody -- >> when do you think you'll have all the debris, as much as you can get from all the sites? >> when -- >> when do you think you'll be satisfied you have gotten as much debris as you can from all the sites. >> i wish i could give you a date certain, i can't do that. we are working to surveil them right now. there is a navy p-3 over the site in alaska, the canadians are in charge of the yukon, and coast guard is working with the canadian coast guard to do the same thing there. so we are this as hard as we can and we will keep you informed as we learn more.

divers in the water over the weekend, we have recovered debris off the coast of south carolina, we'll keep you informed. >> will you brief congress this week? >> there have been briefings as early as late last week and do fully expect there will be additional briefings this week, perhaps even later today. >> we are running out of time, guys. >> harsh, said the first balloon was an accident and the last three objects were not theirs. has the white house had conversations with beijing about that? >> the first one was chinese, they admitted it, they claimed it was a weather balloon, it's not. these three, we don't know who owns them so i'm not going to take anybody's word at face value until we can get a chance to take a look at them. are we in touch with the chinese, we have -- we have an embassy in beijing, maintain routine diplomatic conversations and have had over that spy balloon incident we did have

private discussions with senior chinese leaders. >> thanks, admiral. i know you just said that are you in touch with the chinese. is there any effort to arrange a call with president xi at all? >> i'm not aware of plans. >> israel. does the president plan to speak with p.m. benjamin netanyahu about the moves to weaken -- >> i have no calls or conversations to read out but are deeply concerned with respect to settlements. >> the maldovan president said there was a russian plot to overthrow the government, and something zelenskyy had warned about. what is the u.s. knowledge of the possible plot and broadly, what is the concern about russia's attempts to sort of

influence these pro european governments in the region, even though it's right now focussed on ukraine about other countries in the region? >> so what i'll say about that is deeply concerning reports, certainly not outside the bounds of russian behavior, and we absolutely stand with the maldovan government and people. >> you have no confirmation -- >> i know of no independent confirmation but are not questioning the capacity, the will of the russians and mr. putin to try to do that. a page out of his play book. >> yes, i was going to ask you a question. one quick question. >> i have to get to everybody. >> lighter than air or heavier than air? >> we have not. >> we have to get to everyone, ok, you had a question. >> all three shootdowns in the

u.s. occurred offshore but the one in canada occurred overland. so is it effective u.s. policy to not shoot down the objects overland for safety concerns? >> i would not read into this a policy decision. we will always, in deciding whether something should be taken down or not, consider the impact on the ground. >> when the chinese, the chinese foreign ministry indicated they would respond in a way they were prepared to, if it turns out the other objects are chinese in origin, is there a menu by the president how to react? >> hypothetical -- >> and china buying more oil from russia, china opening up cases in the u.s. trying to steal u.s. technology from universities, president xi is going to be meeting with the iranian president. at what point do you do a big review of the u.s. relatio