for seven days it was en route to the united states off the coast of the aleutian islands. norad, responsible for tracking nuclear ballistic missiles and nuclear bombers, certainly had the capability to track this every single minute leading to the united states for seven days. what were we thinking during that time frame? why didn't we make the decision to take this balloon out as it approached the united states? they are trying to minimize it saying it only past over the aleutian islands for a few minutes. well, we had seven days we were tracking it. and that -- the american people are owed this explanation. certainly i think it's going to help us get an even better consensus politically, bipartisan and with the american people about how serious china is a threat to the united states and our well-being. >> bill: you are asking a lot of questions there and so are we. "wall street journal" is. biden the chinese spy balloon. why wait so long in order to order airspace intruder shot down? i think you were the first one, general, last week that mentioned the aleutian islands i

your report suggested leader mcconnell had a reasonable question, nowhere between the aleutian islands when it was first detected until it lasted in the atlantic ocean off the coast of my state, was there an opportunity to take it down over a desolate area? could it not have been taken down by puncturing it with multiple cannon rounds so it would drift slowly to earth? when you see the make weight arguments that emerge, they seem to have a political objective or a covering a you know what like they were continuing to let it to float so they could gather intel about it. at the end of your own report, you said it didn't seem they could gather more intel by letting it float through the united states. there are a lot of questions suggested. i'm not sure there's any harm in raising them. >> absolutely not. ask away. i think the questions are good to ask. i just don't know an answer as to where it would have been appropriate to shoot it down. 8,000 people live on the aleutian islands. officials say the balloon was up to 200 feet tall, weighed a couple thousand pounds that we know the debris

we should have shot this balloon down over the aleutian islands. we should never have allowed it to transfer the entire continental united states and their open questions in his easter answer to congress on behalf of the american qupeople about why they didn't. or if it is the president's reluctance to kk action us confrontational first chinese communists. was provocative is sending. >> your reaction to the , senator there. >> senator, and is saying what a lot of lawmakers are now which is why the administration shoot the balloon down there ? there's been some back and forth in how the position is choosing to answer that . so far by them has said publiclythey didn't want to cause any harm to civilians which is , it's been the main excuse they had but we have to reporting the post some administration officials are saying anonymously that these photos have been spotted before in past administrations and now you have some administration officials saying on the record that's not true there's a lot of back-and-forth about five how the administration han

remember this was approaching the united states over waterbury is approaching the aleutian islands overwaterity to take it down then. that is what should have happened. we had to print tracking from mainland china across the pacific ocean. we had plenty of warning to put together an operation that we are conducting now on the east coast that should have been done there. and by the way we have alert aircraft in alaska for the principal reason of the penetration, largely from ru russia. that is why the aircraft are there. they have been able to respond to this when approached the united states in the name of the aleutian islands. now were chewing on the door words leaving the united states. anti- climatic in that sense bristol sends a message to china that we are not going to let you get away with this nonsense. hopefully learn diplomatic team gets back together with china we really put some cards on the table with them. arthel: you sent collecting the data from this balloon will be tricky and difficult why do you say that? >> what is been described to us this is a very heavy object. it is hea

officials said part of the reason they did not shoot down the spy balloon early on over the aleutian islands in alaska was because recovering the spy balloon would have been more complicated in those waters. listen. >> the water toppings off shore at the aleutians go to 18,000 feet quickly in the sea. the water temperatures are consistently in the low 30s which would make recovery and salvage operations very dangerous. >> recovery and salvage operations expected to be nearly impossible with bad weather this weekend. they do resupply because the water is rough under water for them to do the recovery. >> thank you, bryan. senator johnson, thanks for standing by. get your reaction to the reporting there specifically the defense department testified they did not shoot this thing down over the aleutian islands because the recovery process would have been too dangerous so they allowed it to hover over u.s. airspace. was the trade-off worth it? >> well again, without revealing what i heard, i can say that what public reports i've heard including the one i just heard, is consistent with what we did

i don't know if we can show the graphic we have from beijing all the way across the aleutian islandsen tracking this for several days. they say it is not a threat to people on the ground. president biden has been briefed. he -- it has been recommended to him by the pentagon that it not be shot down and the other thing that's happened in the wake of all this is secretary blinken of the state department was set to go to beijing. it would have been the first visit since covid. that is now apparently on hold as it probably should be. >> bill: the president and xi met a few months ago and said they would keep up dialogue and this was blinken's trip to do that. even though the state department never officially announced the trip, blinken was scheduled to leave today and have his meetings on sunday and monday in beijing and right now that has been put on hold. we're getting a mea culpa from china. they say the suspected spy balloon hovering over montana was not intended for surveillance. we'll track that now with greg palkot from london with details. >> this is a remarkable story. we get a

just as an example, over the aleutian islands, the balloon could have been shot down. down over waters almost two miles deep. so recovering that payload would have been very, very difficult. whereas, obviously now it's in waters that are 47 feet deep off south carolina, which is much easier to recover. so that's the type of information where i would just respectfully submit to my republican colleagues, wait, get the facts, and then make your conclusions after you hear from the military leaders. >> not to mention the more than 8,000 people that live on the aleutian islands. does this incident hurt your efforts to work in a bipartisan way with the chairman of the committee, mike gallagher, and other republicans? >> i don't think so. i think we have to refocus and just make sure that we uncover the facts. we lay them out for all of our committee members and the american people, and then we take steps to deal with those facts, with those challenges and threats. if we do that, i think we'll be true to our mission, but we can't engage in speculation or rhetoric that would be

we should have shot this balloon down over the aleutian islands.should have never allowed it to transit the entire continue ne -- continental united states. >> this entire episode telegraphed weakness to xi and the chinese government. >> we made it clear what we're going to do. they understand our position. we're not going to back off. we did the right thing, and it's just the reality. >> reporter: biden officials said there have been at least three past instances of chinese spy balloons crossing into the u.s. airspace. a top u.s. general said today that the threats were not detected in realtime. >> we did not detect those threats. and that's a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out. >> which might explain why former trump officials said they were unaware of the incursions. the administration explained that biden had ordered additional assets to detect chinese spying efforts. >> we were also able to go back and look at the historical patterns, and that led us to come to understand that during the trump administration as you said, there wer

less any courses or possible courses of action that give us an option to take it down over the aleutian islands or the pacific ocean. can you just put yourself in the commanders mindset and what is the checklist that we might run through in an incident like this? what are you thinking? >> armchair quarterbacking a great commander, that's probably not what i need to be doing. they reported at the time, they gave the best advice they had for what was happening at that time. remember, we do not have 1000 examples of previous balloon overflights to reach back to and apply it to this particular event. this is new. this is a new niche area that frankly the commander was not unaware of, but learning about. i think, as admiral rogers said, there is concern about downing this thing over populated areas. even anywhere. because you cannot control exactly where it will come down. that certainly entered their thinking. ideally, had we had the mechanisms, the sensors in place, we could have gotten it prior to entering our sovereign airspace or canadian sovereign airspace. remember, we, norad, is a u.s./canad

they have you had coo have shot it down over the aleutian islands, they did not.he president ultimately gave the order. what's interesting and apparently they picked up a bunch of the wreckage. they got all the good stuff now. apparently there was a kill switch on it. so there were explosives. the chinese could have blown it up so we wouldn't have anything left but they didn't because they were more interested in surveilling as much as they could. obviously they don't have any super secrets on board because otherwise they would want to blow up the evidence. >> katie: amazing the united states trusted the chinese not to blow it up over a populated area given the debris. john kirby the head of the national security council strategic communications saying they have been transparent about this. >> should the public be hearing directly from the president on this. >> i have -- we have been -- i think as transparent as we can be. i won't speak for the president's personal speaking schedule, but, i mean, he has been deeply engaged in every one of these decisions. he has b

it ends up being shot down over south carolina, and the fact is we could have got it in the aleutian islands though they're not leveling with us. >> well, you know, what you saw too as well is that it was now canadian sovereignty. when we shot down the third one concern. brian: the recovery's in the in the yukon right now. >> right. it was an american fighter jet, f-22, but i think we're sending a message of what would happen, you know, in ukraine. obviously, we had this incredible coalition, as you know, pushing back on the russian advantages. and i think it's -- invasion. and i think it's end hopefully sending the right message that the world will rally around us if they keep messing around. brian: mr. secretary, the country's got to rally around. everything, from the farmland they're buying, from the schools they're taking over, from the corporations that sold their soul in order to get cheap goods, this has got to be a whole of government and country approach. >> yeah. i'd say a whole nation approach, as you said, brian. and what people need to understand is that we're the underdog here.

so it was seen over the aleutian islands, then flew over canada and again crossed the us border on februaryand issekli already over montana on the third day, we had the states of kansas and missouri , his route passed at least three secret nuclear facilities and military bases to shoot down the balloon americans fighters of the fifth generation raptor took to the air, in addition to them , f-15 fighter bombers participated in the operation. coast guard helicopter destroyers and even a nuclear aircraft carrier and all efforts for a long time were in vain. why is it so difficult to shoot down ? but even with small breakdowns. the scarf is able to continue flying. it simply resets the balance and reverts back to the given height. and this is another factor of invulnerability balloons drift air currents of the atmosphere, reaching heights of 35-40 km, fighters, including american raptors, are not able to get here as a result. they are forced to fire at a target from a long distance in such a situation, the low , radar and temperature contrast of the balloon does not allow it to be reliably capt

several days, according to the pentagon, an unknown high-altitude umbrella that flew in from the aleutian islandsossed canada over the state of montana, it is most likely intelligence, it may belong to china, the raven department assured that they accept everything measures to protect classified information in montana, located base with nuclear weapons , some us politicians have demanded the balloon is shot down, but the military believes that it is dangerous for people on the ground, however , joe biden was informed about the situation. the pentagon has already contacted representatives of the prc on this issue, but in beijing they urged not to speculate on the topic and said that they were also checking. in energodar, zaporozhye region, a terrorist attack took place this morning in a residential area of ​​the city; one person was blown up by a car ; was also destroyed, standing next to the car in the leadership. the dpr reported that the coal was practically taken into the ring as a strategic task. now to take control of the routes along which ammunition and weapons are delivered to the su. rep

surveillance -- it should've been shot down much sooner, over the aleutian islands, in a way that would've just stopped this unbelievable reach of you had -- u.s. sovereignty. he quotes an ex parte who says a high-altitude balloon could be designed created, and launched in a matter of months that would permit weapons to be delivered from that altitude. he talked about the flyovers being a dry run. they are testing us, and we did not rise to that challenge. let me say to my friends and colleagues have -- the military aspirations of xi jinping or global. he looks at the entire world and he has a multiyear plan. finally, xi jinping -- i've been barred from going there by the ccp. xi jinping and the ccp systematically murder, jail, torture, persecute their own citizens, and as we all know it does pose an existential threat in the region and the united states. we need to up our game and mitigate the threat to our own people. americans deserve better and this resolution is asking the tough questions so that happens. i yield back. >> the gentleman's time is reserved. >> i'm please to yield two mi

a chinese balloon was spotted over the aleutian islands, then flew over canada and crossed the us borderon february 2 and was already spotted over montana on the third day in kansas. its route passed at least three secret nuclear facilities and military bases to shoot down a balloon the americans took to the air fifth-generation raptor fighters, in addition to them , f-15 fighter bombers participated in the operation. helicopter coast guard destroyers and even a nuclear aircraft carrier and all efforts for a long time were in vain. why is it so difficult to break it down? the fact is that in order to defeat it , it is necessary to destroy the shell with a diameter of up to 200 m and release the carrier gas outside. but even with small breakdowns. the scarf is able to continue flying. it simply resets the balance and reverts back to the given height. and this is another factor of invulnerability - balloons drift in the air currents of the atmosphere, reaching heights of 35-40 km. fighters, including american raptors, are not capable of get as a result. they are forced to fire at a target

balloon which page and called a weather surveillance aircraft was 1st spotted floating near the aleutian islands and then again st. hovering, a nucleus science in the us state of montana. the american state department is referred to. the incident is a violation of its sovereignty. we have noted the people's republic of china statement of regret, but the presence of this balloon in our air space is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law. and is an acceptable that this has occurred. the u. s. insists the and craft is a surveillance balloon, despite china saying it. so whether device which straight of course, painting on it that it regrets the unintended entry of its sackcloth into american as space. the airship is from china. it is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes, affected by the western winds and with limited self steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. the chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into us airspace. u. s. media outlets were initially hysterical over a foreign balloon flyi

it was 1st over the aleutian islands than it was in billings, montana. there's some concern about the possibility that it's near nuclear sites that it's also been confirmed by a number of experts in the united states that there is nothing that could be obtained from such a balloon that couldn't easily be attained by china with satellites. i was satellites, they could just as easily get any information and that there is no threat to civilians posed by this below. this is not a weaponized balloon. this is not a drone or anything like that. there is no danger to civilians by this balloon. now it is worth noting, however, the antony blanket, the u. s. secretary of state did cancel his meeting with the chinese president, and i canceled it saying that this balloon is the reason i made clear that the presence of the surveillance balloon in you as her space is a clear violation of you, a sovereignty and international law that it's an irresponsible act that the pure seas decision to take the section on these my plan visit is detrimental to the subject of discussi

this weather balloon from china 1st passed over the aleutian islands. then it was spotted over building with montana near the canadian border. it passed through south carolina and into the atlantic ocean. and that is where it, matt, it's dramatic and, and was shot down quite a dramatic few days. us media had audiences just hyped up about the danger of a chinese below. people are looking back at this incident and wondering if this is similar to the hysteria in the united states. after the soviet union was launched, the 1st spacecraft. sputnik people are comparing this to other hysterical incident to the state us mainstream media has been playing out the idea that this balloon is a big threat to the american people. however, everyone who's looked into it has said, 1st of all this, this drone was absolutely no threat to the safety of americans. it did not have weapons on it. it was not some kind of drone or military devices with media logic. meteorological device used for monitoring whether by china and on top of that, the surveillance capabilities of this

it was 1st tracked over the aleutian islands near alaska and travelled through western canada and into the u. s. state of montana where it was spotted near a military installation home to some of america's nuclear missiles. i have no idea what the thing is. it seems so brazen and just so insane to me that that any one would even attempt to just push a balloon over the sky. the chinese foreign ministry acknowledged ownership of the balloon and expressed regret for the incident, but said it was merely collecting weather data, not intelligently. the pentagon has its doubts. still, it says the balloon is not a threat to any one on the ground or plains since it's flying well above commercial air traffic. but there are questions about why the pentagon is allowing the chinese surveillance balloon to linger, looking at the potential for debris and the impact on civilians on the ground or property damage right now, as i mentioned we, we assessed that it is not pose a risk to people on the ground as it currently is traversing the continental united states. that hasn't satisfied biden's critics a

he allegedly flew over the aleutian islands and had time to look into canada.fter that he appeared in the atmosphere over the gray of the united states, according to american military experts , interests in this area are not accidental. there is a large number of strategically important facilities, including ballistic missile bases. it is known that in the states of dakota, wyoming and montana, there are bases with ballistic missiles, perhaps they are trying to observe them, plus it is possible to monitor the activity of our strategic bomber bases in dakota , such intercepts certainly provide a lot of data that can be used in conjunction with satellite surveillance data. it is definitely not to have his weather balloon probe in its size, they are very small; they consist of a ball, only a few meters in diameter and a small box with weather sensors, the shell of the ball is made of latex. it is filled with light gas. when climbing, the gas expands until then. as long as the latex has enough strength, then the shell bursts and the weather balloon falls on the sur

it was 1st officially cited over the aleutian islands in the u. s. state of alaska. american and canadian officials say it then flew through canada and back into the u. s. s base where it was again, spotted over the city of feelings in montana. malcolm davis is a senior analyst with the strolling strategic policy institute. earlier i asked him how we know it's a chinese surveillance balloon. it's fairly obvious that the u. s. tractors, just because we're seeing social media images of at the moment doesn't mean that the north american air defense command, nora didn't track it. coming over the aleutians, we have a good track of it and also would make very little sense or the chinese to fly a balloon carrying scientific will meet your logical instrumentation over us icbm fields. so i think all the evidence suggests that this is a chinese surveillance system. so why would beijing use a balloon when they have a network of satellites and more advanced technology? but certainly, in terms of gathering optical intelligence, taking images of, of the sites on the ground, satell

it was 1st over the aleutian islands, then it was in billings montana. there's some concern about the possibility that it's near nuclear sites. china has confirmed that this is a chinese balloon as a weather balloon used for media logical research by the chinese authorities. now they have made clear this balloon serves no military purpose. it's not being used for spying or anything of that effect. it's simply for monitoring the weather. and it's also been confirmed by a number of experts in the united states that there is nothing that could be obtained from such a balloon that couldn't easily be attained by china with satellite so satellites. they could just as easily get any information and that there is no threat to civilian posed by this below, this is not a weaponized below, and this is not a drone or anything like that. there is no danger to civilians by this balloon. now, it is worth noting, however, the anthony blanket, the u. s. secretary of state did cancel his meeting with the chinese president and canceled it. then this balloon is the reason i

it was 1st tracked over the aleutian islands near alaska and travelled through western canada and into the u. s. state of montana where it was spotted near a military installation home to some of america's nuclear missiles. i have no idea the thing that seemed so brazen and just so insane to me that that any one would even attempt to just push a balloon over the sky. the chinese foreign ministry acknowledged ownership of the balloon and expressed regret for the incident, but said it was merely collecting weather data, not intelligently. the pentagon has its doubts. still, it says the balloon is not a threat to any one on the ground or plains since it's flying well above commercial air traffic. but there are questions about why the pentagon is allowing the chinese surveillance balloon to linger, looking at the potential for debris and the impact on civilians on the ground or property damage right now, as i mentioned we, we assessed that it is not pose a risk to people on the ground as it currently is traversing the continental united states. that hasn't satisfied biden's critics and con

there better not have been damage done or it makes my case for shooting the thing down over the aleutian islandswe have 150 from them. the air force base is a deterrent for this country and has been since the early '60s. the military made an assessment they wouldn't be able to gather the information that military thought was important to china. >> yeah. >> and if that didn't happen that way, somebody screwed up. >> you, on the issue of china, according to the federal government, 3% of the nation's farmland is owned by foreign investors. >> yes. >> you have recently introduced a bill to try to restrict foreign ownership of farmland. i know this is an issue in a number of farming states. why do you think that needs to be a federal ban on foreign ownership? >> i'm a farmer and i've been farm, my grandparents' land at the homestead is important for food security. the folks -- this is a ban against china, russia, north korea and iran, folks who don't want to see us exist as a nation. i don't think they should have any opportunity to try to dictate our food supply or -- >> any chinese-owned company, p

so thing near the aleutian islands and then again seen hovering near nuclear science in the us states, montana. the american state department has referred to the incident of the violation of its sovereignty. we have noted the people's republic of china statement of regret, but the presence of this balloon in our air space is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law. and there is an acceptable this has occurred. the us in the 3 i crossed the the surveillance balloon. this by china. think it so what the device which trade off course meeting i think that it regrets the unintended entry of it's crossed into american space. the airship is from china. it is a civilian airship. used for research, mainly meteorological purposes, affected by the western winds and with limited self steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. the chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into us airspace. for its part, the pentagon said the chinese balloon pose completely, no threat to people on the ground. the balloon continues to move eastward

>>ep rorte ir:tam ce over the aleutian islands in canada and passed over montana, where intercontinentalic missiles aasre bed. today it waspo stted over missourier, whe mmcoercial pilots w wereard neto be on the loouokt. >> bonallo at your 11:00. >>he thing is weird. >> repr:orte ptaengon ofalficis ysa it carries no onweaps. and is notel liky ptoick up any inigtellen ccehinese satelslite haven't aealrdy cctolleedn i thr eifrequent orbovits erhe t u.s.>> a wreeer ctain about that? e if whan'vet actually captured thsee ast,nd a we haven actulyal loodke at eth instruatmention, do we know exac wtlyha wte are dealing with? >> reporter: republican congressman mike gallagher, chairman ohef t house seltec coitete on china says themi liryta should haveho st it down beefor it ever reached the lower 48. >> weav he to send a sigthnal at viatolions of our paairsce, violatiof ns oousor verentigy like this will not be totelerad and they w bille metit wh a stronges rponse.>> reporter: one oicffiald tol cbs ns ewcbs news prident bideitn iniay llwanted hoto sot itow dn, but pentagon leerads said it was to

so it was seen over the aleutian islands, then flew over canada and crossed the border again the unitedes on february 2 and issekli is already over montana on the third day with us in the states of kansas and missouri, its route passed over at least three secret nuclear facilities and military bases, in order to shoot down a balloon , the americans lifted fifth-generation raptor fighters into the air, in addition to them, fighter bombers participated in the operation f-15. coast guard helicopter destroyers and even a nuclear aircraft carrier and all efforts for a long time were even. why is it so difficult to bring down the fact that in order to defeat it, it is necessary to destroy a shell with a diameter of up to 200 m and release the carrier gas. but even with small breakdowns, the scarf is able to continue flying. it simply drops ballasts and returns back to a given height. and this is another factor of invulnerability. aerostats drift through the air currents of the atmosphere, reaching heights of 35-40 km, fighters, including american raptors, are not able to get here as a result.

airspace over the aleutian islands last tuesday. it moved to canada, reentering u.s.er idaho. once the balloon reached the atlantic coast, it was shot down with a single side winder missile from an f-22 fighter jet. >> whoo! boom! >> i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down, on wednesday as soon as possible. they decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water. >> chelsea: wow, joe biden really liked giving that announcement. he hopped off his big, strong plane, and he walked over with his aviator sunglasses, looking like a real tough guy, popping a balloon. giving off some serious "top gun: maverick" vibes. the straight kind. honestly, though, poor joe biden. obama got to order the assassination of bin laden, and all he gets to do is murder a bag of helium. and as you heard, this balloon was the size of three buses. i love measuring things in buses. and for the rich people out there who don't know what a bus is, they're those big yellow vehicles that bring matt gaetz's girlfriends to school. [cheers and applause] so the balloon went over alaska, then

think of the people in the aleutian islands. joe biden hasjust spoken in the last few moments.irst and _ where. once again, republicans tend to shoot first and ask— where. once again, republicans tend to shoot first and ask questions - to shoot first and ask questions later~ _ to shoot first and ask questions later~ the — to shoot first and ask questions later. the chinese bible and was no exceptioh — later. the chinese bible and was no exception. the balloon was shut down~ _ exception. the balloon was shut down~ at — exception. the balloon was shut down. at the what the united states did the _ down. at the what the united states did the first was to disabled the intelligence gathering capabilities of the _ intelligence gathering capabilities of the spy balloon. extract the information it had come and then waited _ information it had come and then waited until it was just off shore of south — waited until it was just off shore of south carolina to shoot it safely down _ of south carolina to shoot it safely down and — of south carolina to shoot it safely down and now collect all