President Biden was actually on Air Force
One traveling
from Syracuse, New York,
to Hagerstown, Maryland,
when the military
undertook this operation
to take down that Chinese spy balloon.
President Biden spoke to reporters
just in the last hour
where he tried
to clearly lay out the timeline
of when he gave that order, saying
he told his military officials
he wanted to shoot down
that plane as soon as possible.
Take a listen to
what the president had to say.
On Wednesday.
When I was briefed on the balloon,
I went to the Pentagon
to shoot it down on Wednesday
as soon as possible.
They decided without doing damage
to anyone on the ground and decided
that the best time to do
that was to look out over water
outside of debris that are within 12 mile
limit They successfully took it down.
And I want to compliment our aviators
who did it.
And we'll have more to report on this
a little later.
Thank you.
This is
what they say about our message to China.
You were saying the recommendation
from here was from your national.
I told them to shoot it
down on Wednesday.
I want to make a recommendation.
They said to me, let's wait for
the safest place to do it.
So the president quite emphatic there
that he did
give that order on Wednesday
of course,
he had been facing a slew of criticism
from Republicans up on Capitol Hill
who had slammed the president
for not taking action sooner.
We've heard from Republicans today
praising the decision
to shoot down that balloon,
but they did say that they wish
that he had taken
these steps much sooner.
Of course, there have also been Democrats
who have major questions
for the White House
about how exactly
this has all played out.
Senator Mark Warner,
the head
of the Senate
Intelligence Committee,
earlier in the week,
said that China
itself wouldn't
have allowed a balloon like this
to fly over their heartland.
We know that Senator Jon Tester,
who is the chair of a subcommittee
for Appropriations
that deals with defense,
he has said
that he wants to hold hearings
relating to this matter.
But certainly the president has faced
a lot of political pressure.
Of course, I will note he was asked there
what kind of message this sends to China.
He did not answer that question.
But this certainly serves
as a major tension point
in that relationship with China.
Well, I
think the United States has sent
that message our lead signs.
Thank you very much.
With me
now on the phone is CNN's chief
national security
correspondent, Jim Sciutto.
Jim, to that point,
I mean, I guess we're reaching a new,
I guess, moment in the relationship,
tense relationship
between the United States and China.
And President Biden making it very clear
on Wednesday
he wanted to shoot this thing down.
It's a critical moment, Jim,
in the relationship
between two superpowers,
which was already tense
and is now more tense.
Of course, the first hostile
act, China
floating
this highly capable surveillance
balloon over the continental U.S.,
including overflying several
sensitive installations.
And now a U.S.
president making a decision
to to acquire
weapons, fire a missile from an F 22 fire
fighter jet
to destroy that surveillance balloon,
but also critically take it down in U.S.
territorial waters
off the coast of South Carolina
with ships on the surface
there as we're told
that going to make an attempt
at least to collect
what it can
from here,
that they can
further learn
exactly what Chinese capabilities are.
I think it's also critical
to note to Jim,
as he was saying, that the U.S.
says they were able to block
the surveillance balloons, ability
to gather intelligence over the U.S.
while at the same time, in effect,
turning the tables
to gather intelligence on their planes
capabilities. That's critical.
But I think big picture,
this is a tense moment.
It was already tense.
We had a U.S.
Air Force general
within the last week
or so mourning his forces
under his command
to be prepared for the prospect of war
with China soon to be 20, 25.
That's not the consensus assessment
from the U.S.,
but it's not far off
from the urgency that U.S.
officials feel about the prospects
for escalation
with China in the coming years.
And now you have a very tangible instance
of that with the missiles fired
in anger or in response to a Chinese
provocation, a tense time.
Absolutely.
We might
and we
might see more provocations to come.
Jim Sciutto,
thanks for that Expertize, as always.
We appreciate it.
I want to go now to CNN's Tom Foreman
for more on the spy balloon.
He's been watching this all day.
Tom, a very dramatic conclusion
to what has been a tense few days over
the United States with this balloon
making its way across the country.
Yeah, we're actually coming up
on three full days of this
being part of the game here.
It's believed that it took off from China
here, came up over
the Aleutian Islands past Alaska,
Canada down this way,
and then ended up down in here.
That would be roughly an 8500 mile
trip or a third of the distance
around the world.
Let's look at what it came
over, though, on the way here
when we had these spottings here,
we it gave us an idea of the path
it was following through
the United States here
as these reports
that maybe it was guided to some degree.
But this also matches up pretty well
with what
the jet stream would do
with any balloon out there.
What did it pass over?
Close to a dozen nuclear facilities,
missile facilities,
somewhere around five or six
large military facilities
along the way here.
And, of course, some fairly big towns.
It got reasonably close to Kansas City,
Saint Louis, Nashville and some others
before coming in to its its finish
here at the end.
Oren said a moment ago
something very interesting
when you pair it
with what Jim was saying there.
They said that this is in 47
feet of water.
We had already looked at the ocean shelf
out here
up to about 35 miles before you go out.
It can go up to 600, 700 feet.
So 15, 47 feet.
That is a very precise excellent
depth for them to recover it in.
It also means they know
precisely where it came down,
that it didn't get lost in the fall.
And they're out there looking for it.
They know where it is really important.
The question now is
what are they going to find?
One of the questions
that military analysts will have about
this is,
was the information
that was being collected,
the stuff
they couldn't block or whatever
they were trying to block,
was that native to this hardware?
Did it live here in some fashion
on some kind of drive
some kind of chip,
some sort of something?
Or was it being streamed to China?
And is all the memory here empty?
Does it mean it's useless?
Even if you don't have that,
you'd at least have the hardware
to give you
some idea of what it was supposed to do
along the way,
some of what
it might have been looking at.
Those are key things they have to look at
when they look through this technology.
Once they're able to fish it
out of the water,
which they hope they can do down here.
And that has not been damaged
too terribly in the fall Jim.
All right.
Tom Ford,
we know the Pentagon wants
to get its hands
on that balloon and all of the equipment
coming with it. Tom, thanks so much.