kirby: there is a lot there. on the trip, i do not have any other additional stops to speak to. -- announced the purpose of the trip which is to go to poland. in karine's opening statement, she talked about the humidity in supporting ukraine for a year. wouldn't it be great if the president did not have to make a trip around a one-year anniversary of a war that never should have started? sadly, that is where we are and wants to make sure he is sending a strong message of international resolve and intercommunity resolve. two a clear to the ukrainian people at the u.s. will continue to stand by them. we know the next weeks and will be difficult and critical for their armed forces in the -- and the u.s. will continue to stand by them. on your question about president lula. >> president lula. he said he wants to create a group of countries to go to peace in ukraine and the group according to him would include china, india and some other countries. kirby: i would certainly refer to president lula to speak to his ideas

admiral kirby: objects. reporter: is there any expectation this will affect the executive order on surveilling companies and what they are doing in china? admiral kirby: [indiscernible] reporter: you said there is no knowledge of a u.s. balloon or other craft over chinese territory. being cognizant of the fact that china has a different definition of what their territory is, is there any surveillance aircraft over taiwan or the south china sea that would fit into that? admiral kirby: there is no u.s. surveillance aircraft over -- in chinese airspace. reporter: chinese claimed airspace. admiral kirby: there is no surveillance aircraft in chinese airspace. reporter: is there any new formal approach being developed as far as how you are going to deal with these things on a systematic basis going forward? admiral kirby: again, that's exactly what the president wants mr. sullivan to run, a process -- as i said in my opening statement, to get around the implications here and whether there needs to be any policy ch

kirby: if they are -- ukrainian pilots on the two aircraft? kirby: if they get u.s. aircraft, they need to be trained. i have set it before, if it is a nato nation or not and they want to provide capabilities like fighter aircraft to ukraine, that is their decision to make. one would assume that if you are going to introduce a system into a military, that they have no experience with, that they will have to be some training that goes along with that. are doing that right now. in oklahoma, we have ukrainian soldiers learning how to use a patriot battery. at sign ukraine, people are helping them train on combined arms maneuvers. it is not unusual to do that but that is a national decision. >> thank you, admiral. is there a concern that these objects were both discovered when they were already flying over u.s. airspace? shouldn't they be detected before they enter the u.s.? kirby: i think we are going to continue to learn a lot about how these things are or can be detected. you heard the norse commander talk about certain gaps he felt he had in the domain awareness. fro

kirby: over u.s. airspace? sec. kirby:-- it was flying over u.s. airspace? sec. kirby: i think you're going to try to learn more. it was an object at 40,000 feet. the predominant concern by the president was safety and flight at that altitude. one who shot down last saturday was at 65,000 plus feet so no threat to civilian aircraft. this one could have pose a threat to civilian aircraft and did not appear to have the maneuverable can ability the other one did. -- capability the other one day. it was at the mercy of the wind. >> to follow-up on what you said about civilian aircraft. is that what you meant initially when you said there was a reasonable threat to sue it -- two shut down? sec. kirby: my exact words were a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. >> given what you said earlier about intent regards to the chinese spy balloon, does the u.s. give any credence to the chinese argument that the balloon accidentally veered off course and ended up where it did? sec. kirby: you're talking about the one from last week? say again. >> did the u.s. give

kirby: right. reporter: has the decision about or has threshold for the use of fighters to take down objects also been tweaked? has it been lowered? has it been changed? mr. kirby: no, we heard the general talk about this last night. he is using established critical data protocols -- protocols to engage craft in the air, that can be legitimately be 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 through the sidewinder air-to-air missiles. and they looked at, and he talked about this. they 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 i think we just do not know right now. in terms of whether there needs to be threshold changes as you put up. i think it is important to state -- take a step back here and what the presiden

kirby: go ahead. i am basically done. >> [indiscernible] >> how does the -- been recovered from south carolina? mr. kirby: as i said, some of the debris -- certainly, they were able to take wings off the surface that afternoon. some of the balloon fabric. in the days since, they have been able to recover some, not all, of the payload that sing to the bottom of the atlantic. it is about -- feet of water. waters are tough off the coast. today, they have not been able to get in the water great over the course of the weekend, they were able to raise some debris, including electronics and the structure -- some of the structure. >> [indiscernible] mr. kirby: if i could tell you that, i would be a wealthy man. it could take a long time, given the weather conditions and the degree to which we have to protect the safety of the divers. >> you said you were unsure of the capabilities of these objects. last week, we were told several times every precaution was taken to ensure -- recovery. mr. kirby: what were you

yes, mr kirby emphasised it was mr biden — it down?irby emphasised it was mr biden who ordered for - it down? yes, mr kirby emphasised it was mr biden who ordered for it - it down? yes, mr kirby emphasised it was mr biden who ordered for it to i was mr biden who ordered for it to happen, and he said it was out of an abundance of caution, but a force we know there's been a huge political pressure on mr biden, certainly by the republicans, who have accused him for being weak on china and not acting sooner, because the spy balloon that was shot down by saturday did travel across much of america for more than a week. but i would add thatjohn kirby did say in that briefing, he said he does not regret, sorry, the president does not regret the way that he handled the first balloon, so as far as mr biden is concerned, the course that the ministration took was the correct one. he actually spoke a short while ago. he is meeting with the brazilian president, president lula, today at the white house, and when he was asked about this latest object,

host: john kirby in the briefing room yesterday. he said the white house has been as transparent as we can. i wonder how that went over in the room with reporters and with members on capitol hill who have been calling for answers and transparency. guest: on the one hand from the press corps's perspective there is appreciation john kirby could speak to these issues and was sent there to answer questions about this. on the other hand, there's a lot of information folks just don't know about this. there is limited info he can share. i think there is even more skepticism on capitol hill where lawmakers are confounded about how this is happening, these objects are in our airspace, why they are being shot down all of a sudden, why there is talk of if it has happened before. there's a growing course from republicans in particular about whether president biden needs to speak to the nation to talk about why this is happening and whether there is any security threat. i think we will see that continue to fester in the next couple of days. call

kirby did it in the name of transparency. i don't know if he gave us everything that he knows, didn't seem to give us much. >> yeah, john, and if i look -- i was taking notes when doing it, let's give credit to john kirby. he's good, very slick. but good. and he parsed a lot of words there, picked up, some examples, they talked about a program with the balloons, able to track it. well, that balloon was seen by two people in billings, montana, and that alerted the balloon in the incident with the balloon. and the sensor package, the size of three school busses. i always said one, but three. it did collect a lot of information. it had communications and signals intelligence capability, able to loiter, able to move around, so it was picking up information and him to say otherwise, limited information, that's wrong. we have to assume the worst, it sat over there, loitered and picked up a lot. when the comment was made, and laugh about it when he talked about are we flying everything over chinese air space and he said well, we are

and as you just said, john kirby, that's the lead. you get up to that podium and that should be your first announcement and you should be proactive in getting that information to the press and not wait for question to be asked by a reporter in terms of uncovering this. so it is interesting that we were told last week, trace, that that spy balloon that flew across the country could not be shut down as it approached alaska, our airspace or was over alaska or montana or other rural areas, could not shoot that down because it was a threat to civilians on the ground, but now with the latest object over northern alaska, the president ordered to shoot this down without hesitation it appears. it's a lot more questions than answers, no question. >> trace: just to give a timeline, so we are clear, and then you bring up a very good point which is if the question was not asked to during the white house briefing, would the subject have been brought up? i mean, that's a key thing, if you don't lead and have the information going into the news confe

podium and the white house briefing room a moment ago, national security council spokesperson john kirby told reporters the intel community is assessing. as of now, it does not look like these additional objects were conducting surveillance. they weren't maneuverable. there was no propulsion, and they were not manned. as to who sent them, that is still unclear. but kirby did begin the briefing by calling out china. >> 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's other intelligence platforms used over the united states. but in the future, if the prc continues to advanc

>> john kirby: completely false story, no truth to it, not a shred of it. it is not true, the united states, no proxy of the united states had anything to do with it, manage. >> shannon: if the u.s. took a mission like that, would they inform congress in advance? >> john kirby: we did not take any such operation, shannon and we keep congress informed appropriately of things classified and unclassified, regardless of the notification process, no u.s. involvement in this, none, zero, it is false. >> shannon: thank you for your time. let's turn to retired general jack keane, for analysis, welcome back to "fox news sunday." >> jack keane: glad to be here. >> shannon: china will come out of the meeting and say they basically gave us what for and that we're responsible for all the fallout and break in the relationship over the spy balloon. what do you make of that? >> jack keane: i think the spy balloon incident is reminder to most and a wake-up call to some, in terms of how serious china is as an adversary in seeking regional and global domination. the reality i

john kirby is here. it started a short time ago. kirby: organizations have been able to get to it. the other fellow in lake huron. i do not believe the u.s. has made a call on this yet but canadian's -- canada's forces said they will not look anymore. i cannot promise you that we will know definitively one way or the other. >> i have a question about bidens claim. the house committee on china is trying to focus on human rights abuses by the regime and has a hearing on that topic. will president biden reduction human rights issues? >> the president never fails to bring up human rights concerns. when he met with president xi in bali, he brought it up then. it is not what -- not just with president xi jinping. the president believes you have to lead with their values, particularly in foreign policy. he is not shy about bringing that up. >> what is the likelihood that president biden means with president zelenskyy next week? kirby: we talked about this on the script that there is no meeting with president zelenskyy schedule for the trip right now. >> and with president xi jinping and t

>> yeah, chris, john kirby saying that the u.s. officials couldn't really tell whether these other three that were shot down between friday and yesterday were self-propelled or maneuvered in any way. like he says he's sure the chinese spy balloon was. out of an abundance of caution, that is why those were shot down. as you said, one of them was flying at 20,000 feet. 40,000 feet. take a listen to a bit of what he said. >> even though we had no indications that any of these three objects were surveilling, we couldn't rule that out. and so, you know, you want to err on the side of safety in terms of protecting our national security interests and the fact that these objects could have and likely did at some point in their path, transit over, you know, military sites of ours our sensitive sites. out of an abundance of caution, the president with the recommendation of military leaders directed them to be taken down. >> and chris, i think the biggest highlight from the briefing underscores how unprecedented the motion is. how seriously t

mr kirby south carolina on february four. ie’i kirby emphasise south carolina on february four.ho ordered it for doing that to happen. he said was out of an abundance of caution. we know there's been a huge political pressure on president biden, certainly by republicans who accuse them for being weak on china and not acting sooner because a spy balloon shot down to travel across much of america for more than a week. but i want to add thatjohn kirby did say in that briefing, he said he doesn't regret, sorry, the president does not regret the way he handled the first balloon. for more on this let's talk to matt kroenig — senior director at the scowcroft center for strategy and security at the atlantic council. thank you for being with us. given that we just heard they are that it was a says this posed a reasonable threat to civilian flight, what is your assessment given the little we know what this object may have been? as you are reporting shows we don't know what this was exactly yet. i think in terms of the biden administrations decision there is the old saying, fool me once sh

in total , according to kirby, there is a potential of approximately $42 billion, but if the situation develops in such a way that this money runs out, the white house will send a request to congress for additional financing however, currently, according to john kirby, there is no such need, as long as there is enough money, the intention to support ukraine until its complete victory was once again declared by french president emmanuel macron on twitter i am quoting this post, the united states and france, together with our partners, will continue to support ukraine until victories are achieved and peace returns to europe, end of quote, france will speed up arms deliveries to ukraine , the minister of foreign affairs of the country, katrin kolonna, said at the munich conference. self-propelled artillery installations caesar announced plans to give us 12 additional caesars to paris on january 31, and recently france has accelerated the production of weapons, and kyiv should wait for the same aid will be needed less, the minister believes that all european countries should adapt their ow

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

and that is what john kirby is calling it at this moment. an object we don't know if it's a balloon. we don't know what exactly this was that was shot down, but we know that it was shot down over alaska. and we also know that this object, according to john kirby was much smaller than that big chinese spy balloon that you also mentioned in the lead in the across the us last week i. it was roughly the size of a small car. that's where john kirby sat now he was asked when this happened and happened in about the past hour. he didn't give it a specific time, but in about the last hour or so that us fighter jets shot down this object. he also was asked when the us learned about his object and he said that happened last night didn't say exactly when last night, but we can assume a brent that that was when the president gave orders to the military to shoot down this object. he said that a fighter jets were able to get up into the sky and determined that this was not a mand object. that means that that is one of the reasons that they made the determi

so john kirby came out obviously talking about ukraine and other matters, but this just came from kirby think to many people's surprise we are not always given a head's up on what the news is going to be, but that is the news. the u.s. shot down another high altitude object he described over alaska. he's taking another question on that right now, john. dip back into the briefing room. >> the president directly involved in ordering this and is wreckage being recovered? >> i'm going to try, remind me if i forget something. yes, the president absolutely was involved in this decision. he ordered it at the recommendation of pentagon leaders. he wanted it taken down and they did that. they did it using fighter aircraft assigned to u.s. northern command. pentagon will have more to say later on this afternoon, it's only just in the last hour. we are calling this an object because that's the best description we have right now. we do not know who owns it, whether it's state owned or corporate owned or privately owned. we just don't know. we don't know. as i said, state owned. don't know if it's s

. >>> we just heard from john kirby. i'm victor blackwell. welcome to "cnn newsroom." >> and i'm bianna golodryga. moments ago, the white house responding to the national security mystery unfolding miles up in the skies. now in just three days as we noted, the u.s. shot down three unidentified flying objects, actions american military has never taken before until this past friday. the white house just explained the u.s. made the move as a precautionary step. >> because we assess that they weren't manned and weren't being controlled, therefore, left to atmospheric conditions, the real risk to safety flight was a problem. even though we had no indications that any of these three objects were surveilling, we couldn't rule that out. and so they're -- you know, you want to err on the side of safety here in terms of protecting our national security interests. >> in the last hour, we are learning now details about the latest object that was shot down sunday afternoon. it was the smallest and lowest flying to date. an onlooker reported this video of

this breaking news was not in the prepared remarks from john kirby. he went through the trip to poland and the president of brazil coming and other details about support for turkey and syria, but only in response to a question about a rumor was this disclosed. >> yeah, victor, the confirmation of the trip to poland was supposed to be the breaking news of this press conference. you laid it out. this was not in prepared remarks. i think to some degree that underscores how quickly this came to pass over the course of the last hour. i think the timeline here is important as well. when you track back, they said that they received information about this unidentified object last night. the president was briefed shortly thereafter. fighter jets ended up flying next to this object, first last night, then again this morning. and the big difference here between -- well, there are a lot of differences between the chinese spy balloon and this object, also a significant number of questions, is where it was flying. it was flying at 40,000 feet. the spy balloon was 6

john kirby said the f-22 downed that object on orders of president biden today. debris is sitting on frozen water in the arctic and aircraft have been launched out of almandorf, smaller than previous spycraft, size of a small car, no significant payload. kirby said it was shot down over alaska, it was deemed flight issue because at 40,000 feet, you have civilian airliners flying. it did not maneuver like the chinese aircraft, he said the object was discovered last night and shot down over northern alaska, here is pat ryder. >> aerospace defense command detected an object and further investigated and identified the object using flighter aircraft, flying at altitude of 40,000 feet and posed reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. u.s. northern command is beginning recovery operations now. >> lucas: john kirby said it is not clear which country owned that object, pat ryder said the object was shot down at 1:45 p.m. eastern time. an f-22 shot down that object with a side-winder heat-seeking missile and the u.s. army helicopter was sent to recover the debr

i also want to add, john kirby was asked about the nature of u.s. china relations at the moment. all he said is he doesn't know if there has been any outreach between the u.s. and china, between beijing and washington since the balloon was shot down. signaling out relations very good between the two rival superpowers. >> we are going to go live to the u.s. department of defense. we think it is being discussed in a military briefing. >> in terms of the other balloon, as i have mentioned, we have learned a lot. about the chinese surveillance high-altitude balloon program. we gathered a lot of information over the last couple of years. based on that information, as it approached u.s. airspace and a good understanding of what it was. monitoring it closely, tracking it over the continental u.s. >> to put this in a different bucket than that? >> i think i was pretty clear. this was traveling at about 40,000 feet, which posed a potential reasonable threat to civilian air traffic and the decision was made to take it down. >> when the pilots approached it, i

john kirby there.bal, she gave us this update. the details so far on this are vague, but the white house spokesman, john kirby, said that this unidentified object was flying at an altitude that was lower than the chinese spy balloon and therefore it posed a risk to commercial aircraft, which is what they were worried about. it was spotted about 24—hours ago, but they shot it down at around about 1.30 eastern time on friday. mr kirby emphasised that it was the president, president biden, who ordered for it to be shot down. this was after a fighterjet approached the object and assessed that it was unmanned. they will now assess the debris to find out exactly what this object was. mr kirby said that the president ordered for the shootdown out of an abundance of caution, but there is a lot of political pressure on him, following the chinese spy balloon. republicans have criticised him for not acting more quickly, saying he is weak on china. he was also heckled at his state of the union address about it. mr

this is why i thought john kirby made a credible case. after the chinese balloon flew across the country we did go on a heightened state and changed the radar under the defense operations. it was warranted, we missed it, we blew it the first time, you don't blew it the second. now you have to recalibrate going forward. >> this was not covered in the j kirby briefing, but white house response, the train derailment, the environmental disaster in east palestine, ohio. we had trent conaway, the mayor of east palestine on just a little while ago. i asked him about the fact that it took the epa administrator so long to get there, and the fact that pete buttigieg still has not shown up. here is what he said about reagan's visit and mayor pete not showing up. >> just a dog and pony show. they have sort of let us hang out to dry here, you know, i commend the united states epa, the actual people on the ground doing the actual work. as far as mayor pete as people like to call him, i would rather he just stay away. he is just going to cause a circus

i'm right with john kirby on this. i think that's flat nonsense.n't flown in my long experience any kind of ba land over china. we have other ways to gather intelligence that don't require us to go into chinese air space or chinese territorial waters to do that. and we do that pretty effectively, which really perturbs the chinese, which is why you have such an electric reaction to the current situation. >> but if one includes taiwan as chinese air space, which i'm not sure the united states does, or if one includes those artificial islands that china is building in the south china sea, which i'm not sure the united states does, then can it be said that we fly surveillance balloons over that, those areas, i'm just saying, is that how the chinese are making this accusation? >> you know, the chinese territorial demands in the south china sea and off their coast and they are not internationally recognized. even given that, i'm unaware of any balloon flights that we might have executed. we just have other ways to gather that intelligence. >> sources tel

going to watch for that white house press briefing for reaction from the white house, as well as john kirby, actually, the spokesperson. china is pushing back, accusing the u.s. of a smear campaign, so how will the white house respond? we are going to first start with this fox news alert. >> john: america's crime crisis continues to plague residents in democratic-led cities from coast to coast, including here in the nation's capital, innocent civilians fight off violent felons and brazen teens who face no consequences for terrorizing america's streets. >> sandra: the latest incident, 82-year-old grandmother trying to make her way to receive chemotherapy, forced to fight off a vicious juvenile trying to carjack her. >> john: what a brave individual that guy was. but not stopping the d.c. far left city council overhauling the criminal code, critics say will put more criminals on the dangerous streets and supposed to be the crown jewel of american exceptionallism. >> sandra: jeff flock on a new bill in illinois could force local shops to hire armed guards instead of relying on the police to he

here'sjohn kirby — spokesman for the white house national security council.e best description we have right now. we do not know who owns it. whether it is state owned or corporate owned or privately owned, we just don't know. we've also heard from our north america correspondent nomia iqbal, she gave us this update. the details so far on this are vague but the white house spokesman, john kirby, said that this unidentified object was flying at an altitude that was lower than the chinese spy balloon and therefore it posed a risk to commercial aircraft, which is what they were worried about. it was spotted about 24—hours ago but they shot it down at around about 1.30 eastern time on friday. mr kirby emphasised that it was the president, president biden, who ordered for it to be shot down. this was after a fighterjet approached the object and assessed that it was unmanned. they will now assess the debris to find out exactly what this object was. mr kirby said that the president ordered for the shoot down out of an abundance of caution but there is a lot of politi

white house spokesman john kirby gave these details in the last few minutes.e right now. we do not know who owns it, whether it's state—owned, or corporate—owned or privately owned. we just don't know. we don't know, as i said, state—owned, we don't know if it's state owned. and we don't understand the full purpose. we don't have any... we don't have any information that would confirm a stated purpose for this object. we do expect to be able to recover the debris, since it fell not only within our territorial space but on what we believe is frozen water. so a recovery effort will be made, and we're hopeful that it will be successful, and then we can learn a little bit more about it. was its appearance like the chinese aircraft? no, it was much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last saturday. the way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car, as opposed to a payload that was like two or three buses size, right? so, much, much smaller. and not of the same.... no significant payload, if you will. let's get more now from our cor

at this white house briefing, what you did hear from national security spokesman john kirby is there is clearly a shift into a robust, all-of-government approach to get more answers, not just to the three objects shot down over the course after a three-day period but what they're seeing in the skies. the widening of the apertures, it's at least one element of why we've seen this more over the course of the past couple days. as you noted, victor, this is unprecedented in terms of u.s. fighters taking out things from over u.s. skies. this is john kirby's response. >> where we go from here, i think we just don't know right now in terms of whether they needs to be threshold changes as you put it. i think it's important to take a step back here. what the president did was ordered these actions with the safety and security of the american people foremost in his mind. there were very good reasons to do it. the military gives an answer, general vanherck decided the best way to do this was with side winder missiles and fighter air aircraft. >> john kirby rejecting the idea of any political pr

we heard from john kirby. the white house says they don't think people should be concerned about this. you hear the navy sailors, they're going what the heck is that? they can't idea fight this object on their screen at all. >> the general is just being very careful. i'm confident in saying that i doubt the aliens would travel across the universe and all of a sudden decide to conduct surveillance over lake huron in a balloon moving 20 miles an hour. i don't think that's true at all. my hunch is these are weather balloons or scientific experiments put aloft by some other country or company. we should know by what's in the pay loads and packages and what the technology is built to do and all that. it will take a matter of time and a lot of this will get cleared up. >> martha: apparently they pulled in one of the largest pieces of the pay load from the original balloon, hard to keep them straight, the one off of the coast of south carolina. this is the one that they have identified as being from china. there's a

mr kirby emphasised it was mr biden who ordered it for doing that to happen.f an abundance of caution. we know there's been a huge political pressure on president biden, certainly by republicans who accuse him for being weak on china and not acting sooner because a spy balloon shot down to travel across much of america for more than a week. but i want to add that john kirby did say in that briefing, he said he doesn't regret, sorry, the president does not regret the way he handled the first balloon. i've been speaking to matt kroenig, senior director at the scowcroft centre for strategy and security at the atlantic council and he's given me his take on the incident. we don't know what this was exactly yet. i think in terms of the biden administrations decision there is the old saying, fool me once shame on you you come up only twice shame on me. i think the biden administration after what was a political embarrassment in the united states for not taking sooner action against the chinese spy balloon last week decided to take early and decisive action to take do

kirby: it had something to do with my age i think. thank you all for giving me a chance to come up and talk on a friday. the president is looking forward to his trip to warsaw next week which is ahead of the one-year anniversary of russia's brutal and unprovoked invasion of ukraine. after healings on tuesday morning, he will meet with president duda of poland to discuss our efforts to support ukraine and bolster nato's deterrence. poland is a close and nato ally and has been a critical supporter of ukraine over the past year. president biden will think president duda and think the polish people for the $3.8 billion in assistance they have provided ukraine over the past year. and for all the efforts that the polish people have done to generously welcome more than 1.5 million refugees to ukraine. -- from ukraine. they will discuss the logistical role that they have two -- from the united states but from our allies and partners. president will have a chance to think poland for how they have hosted an increased number of u.s. forces inclu

kirby said they were part of a larger fleet. the original balloon, that is.of a larger fleet by china and their surveillance pgram. david: so they are seeing more because they are looking for more of these things? >> and that's a key point. after february 4, with the u.s. military basically did was fine tune their radar a little bit more. they changed the frequency at which they could detect these objects. so loads of objects are apparently flying around and this allows them to protect them more. basically yes, they are seeing more because they are looking for more. david: incursions that have been going on for quite some time, undetected by the u.s. >> he said it had been going on since the previous administration, making the point that mr. biden is now doing something about it. china has been accusing washington of doing the same thing back that the u.s. is accusing china of scrambling to do some pr damage. i think this incident and reveal of a larger chinese spying program, what it has become is a serious obstacle in one of the key foreign policy goals bid

the white house this afternoon -- john kirby could not confirm whether this second object was also ofnese origin. >> we are calling this an object because that is the best description we have right now. we do not know who owns it, whether it is state owned or corporate owned or privately owned, we just do not know. david: joining me from the white house is our washington correspondent. what more do we know about this mystery object? correspondent: so, the white house is being vague about that. to let you know, we came here for the regular press briefing. at the agenda was expected to be the latest on ukraine, the aid being provided to turkiye, and at the visit of the brazilian president who has been meeting president biden. but as soon as he started talking, john kirby, he spoke about the object shot down over alaska into completely dominated our attention. just a recap of what he said thre it was -- there, it was flying at a high-altitude around 40,000 feet. that's actually much lower th the chinese spy balloon from last week. it was also unmanned. he said once the fighter jets reali

joining me now is john kirby. good to have you.eing with us. >> thanks, katy. >> yesterday at the briefing, you didn't have a good idea about what these objects were. whether they were commercial, benign or working for the government. today, am i getting the terms right? a leading explanation? am i right about that. >> yeah, possible leading explanation here that we're beginning to develop in concert with the intelligence community and with civilian aviation authorities is that these very well could be balloons of a benign nature. perhaps commercial or scientific research sort of a focus. again, we don't know for sure because we haven't recovered that debris. i want to caveat it. we would like to be able to see for ourselves to be sure, but based on flight characteristics, a visual confirmation by the pilots and some other data that we're putting to it, one sort of, well, leading indication could be that they were actually benign balloons. >> we shot this down because we were worried about commercial air space. i'm right about that

we just heard from john kirby.ministration so far? >> you know, all of us want to get the information as quickly as we can. what i do appreciate that the admiral is doing is he's being very careful to provide information that he can back up. and so i appreciate that. i would love to get more information, more quickly. i would really like to find the information or at least the data that they've got on the items they already recovered. i know they're going through that. i think we'll find out more once we recover some more of the debris, so at this stage of the game, i think we all have a pretty good understanding of what it may be. but we don't know the details. and so, if they want to stick to the program of we've taken them out, we know where they're at, we're going to give you the details as soon as we get them, then i'm prepared to accept that because that's the best data we can get. in the meantime, look, we're still concerned about the fact that it took a while to actually be able to change the arrays on the

so john kirby will join us from the national security council. lots of questions on covid, china and ukraine in just a few moments. winter weather await reaction from the white house as the department of energy joins the fbi in its thinking that covid-19 may actually have leaked from the lab in china, the wuhan lab. virology lab. it's the latest in several collapses of the covid policy that locked down, masked up and mandated the united states for over two years. this is a big deal. one of the biggest revelations that the naysayers now have is a 180 or natural immunity. a new study finds that one bout of covid is better than two covid vaccine shots in protection. that is published in lancet. remember, early on they were singing a very different tune. they said absolutely didn't come from the lab. we're talking about why they might have said that in just a moment. on the lack leak, proponents of which were labelled racist or maga by tech titans and many in the media. the head of the cdc now looks like the smartest guy in the room. but this thinkin

kirby credited the u.s.to closely monitor china and, in fact, this administration canceled the so-called china initiative. that initiative was in place to indict anyone involved in surveillance in america. the biden administration canceled it. joining me right now is missouri senator, member of the senate armed forces, joint economic commerce committees, eric schmitt. it's just storied to me that every time we hear from john kirby he tries his best to change the conversation, blame it on trump and yet we still have no information whatsoever about 3 unidentified flying objects that were forced to be shot down in our air space in america. >> we need more transparency. good to see you again. what they can spin from balloon in air space. even as briefings as senator we asked questions about it. there's no good news for why this thing wasn't shot down over alaska. it was allowed to traverse again over the lower 48 states including missile silos in the dakotas. missouri. also the national geo spacial intelligence

the likely hypothesis is that they were being moved by the prevailing winds. >> kirby there using everyson learned over his 28 years of decorated military service to explain how wind works. kirby then appeared on cnn to warn our enemies that our trillion dollar defense apparatus has the tactical capability to seamlessly pivot to balloon-o-vision. >> the norad staff adjusted the parameters for the radar systems, the sensitivities to look for things that were low -- i'm sorry -- slow, high -- and small. when you adjust your sensitives on the radar, you're likely to see more of those kinds of contacts. >> for those not familiar with military jargon, he said we set the settings to balloon and now we see balloons. joining me now to escape the clutches of the evil lord headlines by putting our analysis ship into hyperscoops is democratic strategist who falls on the floor and rolls around laughing when a rich person tells her a joke, lydia parker. >> good evening. >> chief washington bureau chief who's been sleeping in his car after the gas meter guy just kind of moved in, jonathan keene. >> h

national security spokesperson john kirby says that an earlier device — a balloon shot down off south days ago — was part of a chinese high altitude programme for intelligence gathering. we were able to determine that china has a high altitude balloon programme for intelligence collection that is 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 again. 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. mark montgomery is a senior director at the foundation for defence of democracies, and a former us navy rear admiral. he previously served on the us national security council, serving as director for transnational threats. thank for transnational threats. you forjoining us. we just thank you forjoining us. we just heard john kirby saying china allegedly has a high altitude balloon programme for intelligence

kirby just a short time ago in a new interview saying that kirby says that u.s. officials have now spoken to chinese leaders in private settings, he says, to voice concerns about the spy balloon shot down off the coast of south carolina. military to military communication between the nations remains closed. so why aren't they picking up the phone, congressman? >> that's a great question and concerning question even in the height of the cold war with the soviet union the back channels were open. my understanding from a briefing we received last week is that secretary of defense austin attempted to reach out and the chinese literally didn't pick up the phone. so this is a time, sandra, where we need clarity, we need candor, we need to hear not from various spokesmen and women but from the president. in the history in norad's 60 year history we have never shot anything down over the united states. now we've shot four objects down that we can't fully describe in the last week. this is a time to hear from the president. if he doesn't know something or still trying to

he added that vladimir putin continues to change generals and how socks said kirby, but this does not solve all the problems of the russian army, end of quote, john kirby, coordinator of the security council of the white house, is serhii zgurets, director of information, with us? of the consulting company defense express, mr. serhiy, we welcome you. good morning. good morning . greetings. the day before yesterday, there was a commander-in-chief's rate. please tell us what the current situation is. considering what was discussed . start , it goes well enough with the attraction scheme if we cook for the final summary of the supreme holo commander. he said that we will further gain positions in the zone of pakhmut and carbon dioxide. he thanked our defenders. well, and in fact, they expressed hope that this will continue and all the necessary measures are being taken for this purpose, because zelenskyi's position is exactly what i think it will be spread to the situation and to the rammstein format, because precisely the detention of additional military aid is now extremely urgent the q

that's an argument admiral john kirby flatly denied earlier. >> not true. not doing it. that's absolutely not true. we or not flying balloons over china. >> also this week, over a week since the devastating earthquakes in turkey and syria, rescue crews are amazingly still finding survivors in the rubble this morning, but the devastation is immense, spanning the area nearly the size of texas, and the number of people confirmed dead is now more than 35,000. in moments i'll be talking with former arizona senator jeff flake, now the ambassador to turkey about how the u.s. is helping people there. and a tragic story out of new jersey putting a spotlight on bullying in schools. a 14-year-old took her life shortly after being beaten by classmates at school. one incident was caught on camera. now as parents demand answers and accountability, the school district's top official is out of a job. details on all this ahead for you. >>> we start the hour with if mysterious string of aerial objects in the u.s. that has been shooting down from the sky. nbc's dan del luis is at departmen

and will kirby thank you so much for joining us today. my question to you after the president's comments in, in poland, is our americans hearing what our stakes are in this conflict in crisis. i believe they are, and of course that was a main purpose of the the president going to keep up this week as well as to poland and delivering a major, a dresser in warsaw to make plain to the world, certainly to the american people but, but to the whole world, what's at stake here with the war going on in ukraine and particularly going forward. now there's been an incredible unity in support for ukraine over the last year. sadly, it's been a year and now we're heading into our 2nd year. hopefully it won't last much longer, but we've got to stay resolved. we have to stay united and the president wanted to make that case directly to people all around the world of admiral house foreign affairs committee. chairman michael mccall is asking for the administration to do more to give more lethal weapons to give longer range missiles to, to, to amp off. esse