combined with hundreds of new missile silos china is building, hyten believes the chinese are developing the capability to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the u.s. >> why are they building all of this capability? they look like a first use weapon. that's what those weapons look like to me. >> reporter: u.s. is developing its own hypersonic weapons, but not as rapidly. hyten said in the last five years, china has carried out hundreds of hypersonic tests while the u.s. has conducted just nine. norah? >> a very enlightening interview. david martin, thank you. >>> all right. there is some encouraging economic news tonight. retail sales surged by nearly 2% in october. that's actually the biggest gain since march, when many americans and american families got those stimulus checks. economists expect that the buying surge will continue through the holidays, but many retailers are struggling to fill more than a million holiday job openings. we get more on this from cbs' meg oliver. >> reporter: eve golden can't find any full-time workers to staff her new jersey boutique. she has to close eve

the number two pers hyten, the number two person in the u.s.ilitary, described the test in an exclusive interview with cbs news. >> they launched a long-range missile that went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle that glided all the way back to china. that impacted the target in china. >> reporter: it hit the target. >> close enough. >> reporter: unlike a ballistic missile, which travels in a predictable arc, a hypersonic weapon maneuvers much closer to the earth, making it harder for radars to see. combined with hundreds of newmb missile silos china is building, hyten believes the chinese are developing the capability to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the u.s. >> why are they building all of this capability? they look like a first-use weapon. that's what those weapons look like to me. >> reporter: the u.s. is developing its own hypersonic weapons, but not as rapidly. hyten said in the last five years, china has carried out hundreds of hypersonic tests, while the u.s. has conducted just nine. norah. >> o'donnell: a ver

hyten said in the last five years, china has carried out hundreds of hypersonic tests while the u.s. has conducted just nine. norah. >> o'donnell: a very enlightening interview. david martin thank you. northwest is dealing with mudslides. the coast guard rescued three people from floodwaters in forks, washington. across the state, tens of thousands of without power and a stretch of interstate 5 remains closed. across the border, the same storm is pounding british columbia where a woman died in a mudslide, the first confirmed death from the storm. all right, there is some encouraging economic news tonight. retail sales surged by nearly 2% in october. that's actually the biggest gain since march, when many americans and american families got those stimulus checks. economists expect that the buying surge will continue through the holidays, but many retailers are struggling to fill more than a million holiday job openings. we get more on this from cbs' meg oliver. >> reporter: eve golden can't find any full-time workers to staff her new jersey boutique. she has to close every day for hal

. >> when john hyten talked about a first-strike capability, the reason this is so concerning is hadn come in very quickly, and right now we don't have the defensive systems that could potentially, you know, shoot down a hypersonic missile so that then does become a first-strike cape ann. once again i'm not concerned that the chinese will use it as a first strike but the potential is out there. >> let me pivot to afghanistan because as you mentioned you helped to lead the raid that took out osama bin laden. right now the u.s. is in the process of vetting thousands of a gan evacuees following the u.s. withdrawal from that country. we have some new reporting today that the u.s. is considering sending some evacuees who don't pass the vetting process back to afghanistan. do you agree with that, and do you think that those who fail the vetting test pose a real threat to the u.s.? >> yeah. i mean, this is obviously a difficult and complicated problem, but the fact of the matter is, you know, when we loaded up 1930,000 afghans that we pulled out of kabul before august 31st we knew that ther

as we learn from admiral richard and general hyten their genetically expanding their nuclear forces and probably accelerating get from what we can tell. if we start punishing them what are they going to do? they will punish us back. how does that and? i think unlikely to be in our favor. the best strategy is we use denial to block the invasion if he can. china's best strategy is to invade taiwan and think it over and create a new reality and then rinse and repeat for the philippines and other coalition falls apart. if we can block them from seizing and holding the key territory of one of our allies we deny that they are complete. then china has decision. i can say i'll give up to live to fight another way or i can try to escalate this. they lost in the immediate battle and they can do that, they could blow some tankers in the middle east but have probably not matter that much. or they could see launch nuclear strikes in america in we're really going to be angry and we can impose costs back on them by then that context it will be the ones are been what i think of as the burden of escalat

hytens -- he's regarded by both sides of the aisle as a superbly skilled lawyer and impartial thinker. and justice robinson, who has spent ten distinguished year on the vermont supreme court, the senate is presented with another dedicated, experienced and historic nominee, she would be the first openly gay woman to serve not just on the second circuit, but on any second circuit in the country. another barrier we're tearing down. we're glad of tearing did down the -- tearing down the barriers. i look forward to her confirmation today and in the weeks and months to come. senate democrats will press ahead to bring balance back to our federal courts with diverse, mainstream, qualified and impartial jurists. now, on the john lewis voting rights act and cloture. madam president, the fight to protect our democracy from voter suppression and election subversion continues in the united states senate. later this evening, i will file cloture on the motion to proceed to the john lewis voting rights advancement act, setting up a vote to take place on wednesday. this bill, which my friend, senator

we have the policies and authorities in place to let the pentagon move quickly and as general hyten put it, fail fast. as he retires this week, i think it's clear that he is a national hero, and he knows what's going on. right now, too much is hampered by bureaucracy, yet the pentagon, the ndaa encourages the pentagon to move faster, to take risks, to jump-start the innovation that we need for success. but we have to realize that, in fact, this is really the most important thing this bill does. we take care of -- people talk all the time about how much we spend on military. i hear a lot of people around don't think we need a strong military. a lot of them talk about, well, we spend more on our military than russia and china put together. yeah, that's true. but we have a cost that others don't have. communist countries don't have the cost of taking care of their people. in fact, the most important thing that we do is take care of our troops. even though china and russia are building up and modernizing their militaries, they don't take care of their people. they don't claim to take care o