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indiana, remember back in january a pence attorney discovered about a dozen classified documents at the former vp's home. and just yesterday, the special counsel subpoenaed pence. jack smith's office wants him to hand over documents and testify under oath about interactions he had with trump leading up to the 2020 election and the attack on the capitol. cnn's senior justice correspondent evan perez joins us now. let's start with what you know about this search at pence's home. >> reporter: well, victor, this was a search that the former vice president and his legal team consented to. this is something that the justice department, that the fbi and the pence team had been working on for several -- for a couple of weeks at least and today's finally the day you see there the pictures, the state police blocking off the driveway and they're doing a search there, trying to find -- trying to see whether there are any more classified documents. for the pence team, they want to try to get this over with. they are hoping that at the end of this, after this search, that there are no more documents found, we expect that there is going to be another search of his office, a think tank office he has here in washington, right across the street from the fbi building, in downtown washington. and if at the end of this there are no more documents found, they hope that the fbi can wrap up this investigation without launching a full blown investigation, without going to a special counsel, that's something they're hoping to avoid because as you know, victor, the former vice president has some political aspirations, he wants to go to iowa, wants to start beginning the conversation about a possible presidential run. >> sure, sure. tell me what you know about this subpoena from the special counsel jack smith. >> reporter: it is absolutely a historical milestone that the special counsel is taking, the justice department certainly doesn't do this very often. but the vice president, the former vice president is an important witness in everything that happened in the leadup to the january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol, everything from his meetings in december of 2020, where he laid out and talked to trump about trump's plans to challenge the elections as well as some important meetings, key meetings in january of 2021 where they talked about this plan of theirs to try to have pence put aside the election results and to try to impede essentially the transfer of power. those are things that are at the center of this investigation. and we know, victor, that there have been negotiations back and forth between the pence legal team and the justice department as to how to do this. a key part of this is the fact that mike pence published a book in november where he talked a lot about these things, so now obviously the justice department wants him to talk about this and possibly more. victor? >> evan perez for us in washington, thank you very much. elie honig, cnn senior legal analyst, former federal prosecutor. let's start with the search. if there is no additional classified document found in this search or let's say at the office in washington, that search will be coming soon, you think a special counsel is necessary for the dozen documents that were discovered by pence's attorneys? >> no, victor. i think if this turns up no further classified documents, we will not see a special counsel. you really need two things if you're the justice department, the attorney general in order to appoint a special counsel. you need some kernel of evidence, some reason to believe there might eventually be proof of a crime and you need extraordinary circumstances, which would be a conflict of interest. if there is no evidence that pence had classified documents other than the ones he turned over, if he's not declared a candidate for office, i don't see either of those things and this could be the end of it if there is no further documents found. >> this subpoena, there are obviously political considerations here. we'll talk about those with the political folks later. but legally, what are the options for the vice president as he decides how to respond? >> so, vice president mike pence has really three opentions here he can comply, go in and testify in front of a grand jury under oath. second of all, they have been negotiating up to this point, but you can continue negotiating. sometimes the actual service of a subpoena will spur those negotiations along. it is actually not at all unprecedented. we saw bill clinton negotiate with ken starr for his testimony, and we saw donald trump negotiate for robert mueller. they agreed to written testimony. we could see ongoing negotiations. the third path is we could see a legal challenge. it is important to note, that could come from mike pence who says i don't want to testify as to certain things for executive privilege. that could come from donald trump as an outside third party saying i was the president, i am the holder of executive privilege and i want to block mike pence's testimony, if we see that kind of legal challenge, victor, i think the law here, the precedent favors the prosecutors, there is a balancing that will have to be done by the courts, but that certainly will take time. >> so, evan mentioned the book that the vice president wrote, released just before the midterms, how much does the publication of that book and the discussion of the conversations and what have been around the election, the attack on the capitol, influence what happens next. >> well, that's going to be an important factor, if there is a legal fight over executive privilege. prosecutors are going to argue waiver, they're going to say he's already talked about this, publicly, your honor and therefore he's given up the right to keep it secret, even if what he said was only sort of partial, even if he doesn't tell the entire conversation. that can be construed as a waiver. if you're mike pence, once you have come out and started discussing these things publicly, then there is an argument that you have given it away. donald trump may have an actual interesting counterargument, he doesn't control the privilege. that's my privilege. i'm the former president, so maybe he does whatever he did, but that shouldn't be held against me. that will be an interesting and really unprecedented issues for the courts. >> one more this is for robert o'brien, trump's former national security adviser, who has been subpoenaed, not only in the investigation surrounding january 6th, but also the documents discovered at mar-a-lago. how much could he offer to the documents investigation? >> so this one is really interesting. he really has the same options we just discussed with mike pence. he can testify, he can try to negotiate, or he can fight it in the courts. but it did catch my attention that the former national security adviser was subpoenaed in the mar-a-lago documents investigation. i mean, i suppose prosecutors want to know what do you know about these actual documents, what do you know about how they got to mar-a-lago, was this run past you, did you approve of this? and i think his answers could be really interesting there, whether he did or didn't know about it, whether he blessed it, whether he believes there is a security risk posed by these documents being at mar-a-lago. so i think that's where prosecutors are looking with him. >> elie honig, good to have you. have a good weekend. thank you. >> all right. the number of those killed in turkey and syria continues to climb. now it is the deadliest earthquake in at least a decade. more than 23,000 people have died from that 7.8 magnitude quake on monday, more than 80,000 are hurt. in turkey, the president said about 141,000 rescuers are there, on the scenes, ten provinces they're working there, all of which have declared states of emergency. the world health organization estimates 23 million people are impacted by this catastrophe. and the u.s. pledged $85 million in aid with dozens of nations offering to help as well. still, more than 100 hours later there are miracles. often involving the tiniest victims. now, this is a warning that the video you're about to see is graphic. anderson cooper takes us to the front line for rescue workers there in syria. >> feet away, they move the woman's arm, and find a toddler named hamuda she was protecting. his eyes closed, no sign of life, they pick away the concrete, but then -- [ crying ] the cry of life. >> wow. cnn's selma abdelaziz is in inta istanbul. tell us what you know about the rescues that we're seeing, that so far outside of what is called this golden window that are still happening. >> reporter: it is incredible, isn't it? what a feat of humanity in those many, many rescue workers on the ground, fanned out across that earthquake zone, still digging through the rubble of these homes, working almost without sleep, without rest because every time they begin to hear the sound of life, as you said, they have to work tirelessly. and we have a couple of stories to bring you with some video to show you. i think the one that is really playing out here today in turkey is the story of two sisters two teenage sisters who were trapped in the rubble of their homes, they were rescued around the 100th hour of this crisis. one of them, i found out after a ten-hour ordeal, rescue workers are trying to keep her spirits up that whole period asking her what she wanted to ice, she said ice cream, they asked her what flavor, they're playing music for her, eventually she was pulled out safely. her sister as well shortly afterwards, we also saw the story of a family helped, six, all pulled out alive. parents and four children. their images that we can play you there of one of the sons just standing by crying in disbelief that his family, his whole life is -- his loved ones are okay. but, victor, these stories of survival, unfortunately, are rare. they are far and few in between. overwhelmingly what we are seeing on the ground is anguish. actually recovery operations. families just huddled in the cold entering the fifth day, for days, waiting, waiting to pull out the bodies of their loved ones so they can bury them. the staggering death toll, 22,000, so mind boggling, it is difficult to fathom and it keeps rising as they pull these bodies out from the rubble. entire families gone. but it is aid, help that is also needed on the ground. that's the warning from authorities, they're saying there are fears of a second crisis, a second disaster, and that is unfolding right now. you have to think of the hundreds of thousands of homeless people who have absolutely nothing. and it is volunteers like the ones around me here, packing boxes, as quickly as they can, with basics, with food, warm blankets, everything they can that are filling that gap on the ground. there has been a great deal of criticism toward president erdogan for his response, did he act quickly enough, were buildings built up to code, could lives have been saved? he's been dogged by these questions. he's promising to pay the rent for one year for any survivors, promising to get housing, but, look, help can't come soon enough. lives are on the line, children are sleeping cold on the streets tonight in that earthquake zone. >> selma abdel aabdelaziz, than for the reporting. joining me is the founding director of the turkey program at the middle east institute. her book "erdogan's war: strong man's struggle at home and in syria" came out last fall. i want to talk about the response in just a moment. first, i want to talk about your family. you were actually in turkey at the time of the earthquake. are you okay? tell us what that was like. >> well, i am okay, thank you. i was a few hour drive from one of the worst hit areas in the country with my family. we had cracks in the building that we were staying in, but we received a phone call from my sister's husband, saying that the city had been leveled to the ground. and his entire family had been trapped under the rubble. >> and i read that he had actually initially found his father who was alive at the time, right? >> that's right. he went to his childhood home, and the building had been -- had collapsed, but he got his father out of the rubble with his bare hands, but his legs were stuck under a large concrete block, and he waited and waited and waited for hours, 48 hours before the rescue workers showed up, only to tell him that he had -- that they had received instructions to focus somewhere else. and that's why he lost his loved ones, and so the thousands of people there. >> i've been wondering as we watch the video of people searching, trying to find people, the tens of thousands who are injured, where do they go with the thousands, literally thousands of buildings in turkey alone that are heavily damaged or collapsed? and you, i've read, you're angry, you're disappointed by the response. what would you like to see that you are not? >> well, help didn't come on time. this is not the first earthquake t tragedy that the country witnessed. we had another major earthquake in 1999. at the time i was part of a student organization that went to the earthquake area to help the victims. and what i saw there was totally different from what i saw. in 1999, there were organizations, volunteers, the turkish military had been dispatched fairly quickly. and there were civil society organizations, aid agencies, rescue workers, all on the ground helping the victims and helping efforts, the search and rescue efforts. now on the other hand, it took 48 hours for rescue workers to show up. so the response was not fast enough and i think it is part of a larger problem with erdogan's turkey. >> you believe that it is a domestic problem, not a global community reaction problem? >> no, not at all. i think it is mostly the corruption and misrule in the country that made monday's earthquake far deadlier. so erdogan basically hollowed out institutions in his 20 years at the helm, he wiped out civil society organizations, but most importantly he granted government infrastructure projects through the construction companies that have little regard for safety regulations and building policies. >> gunol tol, our condolences to your family, considering all the loss of life, and the struggle that undoubtedly will be ahead. thank you so much. for more information on how to help the victims of the earthquake, go to cnn.com/impact. let's go to the white house now, john kirby is speaking there about the president's plans as it relates to ukraine. >> -- states in a region that is also critically important region and allies we work together to address common challenges throughout the world, quite frankly, not just in this part of it. president has personal experience working with president -- with his time as vice president and they met several times and had multiple calls. and we already held a number of high level engages since president lula's election. he called him shortly after he was elected to congratulate and began identifying areas where the two could work together. national security council adviser jake sullivan traveled there and there was a presidential delegation to brazil for the inauguration. of course, following the january 8 attack on brazil's democracy, president biden was quick to call president lula to convey the united states' unwavering support for democracy in brazil. the two have had or they will have a path here to discuss issues that are important to both of them and to the region and the world. that includes combatting climate change, stimulating economic development, strengthening democracy, promoting human rights, and inclusion, as well as managing irregular migration. this meeting between the two leaders will strengthen the relationship between the united states and brazil, and will help set the stage for upcoming high level engagements between the two countries. one more note before we jump into questions, an update on u.s. efforts to respond and to help provide assistance to the people of turkey and syria in the wake of those devastating earthquakes. we are ramping up our assistance to these earthquakes that have now killed more than 20,000 people. turkey and syria, including, that we know of, at least eight american citizens. this is a terrible tragedy, obviously, and our hearts continue to go out to all those impacted. we remain in close contact with our turkish allies at every level of government, including a phone call between president biden and president erdogan. yesterday, we announced that the united states will provide $85 million in life saving assistance to provide shelter to the displaced as well as food, medicine, and other desperately needed aid. in turkey, a usaid disaster assistance and response team is already on the ground. and two of our most highly trained urban search and rescue teams are conducting operations in support of turkish rescue efforts in one of the hardest hit areas inside the country. these teams have nearly 200 personnel combined between them, specialized equipment and canine support dogs as well. they have been able to expand their operational reach with the support of u.s. milititary blackhawk helicopters. ground transportation, i think you can understand, is pretty challenging. they will continue to run airlift operation, transporting rescue personnel to sites most needed to conduct operations. the dart teams as we call them are also conducting structural damage assessments of many buildings and infrastructure. to date they have been able to cover more than 630 sites across the area. in syria, our humanitarian partners scale up response efforts to reach people in need. that work will include or has included chartered flights that are transporting essential medical supplies and teams distributing hot meals and other food. as of this morning, the united nations and its partners successfully completed its second cross border humanitarian convoy into northwest syria and one of our humanitarian partners delivered 14 additional truck loads of supplies through the crossing, totalling now 20 trucks of critical medicines, food and water to people in need over the last two days. to underscore that u.s. sanctions will not prevent or inhibit prohibiting humanitarian assistance in syria, yesterday the department of treasury, you saw, issued a broad general license to provide additional authorizations for disaster relief assistance to the syrian people. we already were able to deliver humanitarian assistance without this general license, but we wanted to underscore the importance of humanitarian getting in so the treasury went ahead and issued this license as well. this license will be in effect for six months. u.s. humanitarian assistance is delivered directly to the syrian people, no matter where they live. and we're determined to do all we can to help those affected by these earthquakes in the days, weeks and months ahead as required. >> thanks. >> why the president decided to go to poland, what message he wants to deliver, and is there any chance that he will visit ukraine during his visit to poland? and i have also one on president lula's visit, president lula said he wanted to create a group of countries including china and egypt to mediate peace between ukraine and russia. does the president support this effort? is this the right time for opening negotiations? >> that's a lot there. so, look, on the trip, i don't have any other additional stops to speak to. karina announced the purpose of the trip to go to poland. i think she answer your main question, what does he want to talk about? he wants to talk about the importance of the international community's resolve and unity in supporting ukraine for now going on a year. wouldn't it be great if the president didn't have to make a trip around the one year anniversary of a war that never should have started. that's where we are and he wants to make sure he's sending that strong message of the united states resolve and the international community resolve and make clear to the ukrainian people, most particularly that the united states is going to continue to stand by them going forward. we know the next weeks and months are going to be difficult and critical, especially for their armed forces and the united states is going to continue to stand by them. on your question about president -- the peace overtures, or ideas, is that -- >> president lula. >> oh, lula, sorry. >> he said he wants to create a group of countries to negotiate peace in ukraine, and those group according to him would include china, india, maybe some other countries. >> i would refer to president lula to speak to his ideas. i think in the aggregate we all would like to see this war end today. and we would like to see it end right now, in other words, without having to go to the negotiating table. that doesn't appear to be in the offing as mr. putin just over the last 24 hours flew dozens more cruise missiles into civilian targets into ukraine knocking out heat and power across the country. so absent that, we're going to have to stay at the task of supporting ukraine so it can succeed at the battlefield. so that if and when president zelenskyy has determined it is time to negotiate, and sit down at the table, to solve this diplomatically, he can do it with the wind at his back, with the strength that he knows he's going to need in that negotiation. so, really up to president zelenskyy to determine if and when negotiations are appropriate and certainly under what circumstances as president biden has said, countless times, nothing about ukraine without ukraine. >> poland, do we expect the president to make any kind of formal announcement as it pertains to additional security aid or will it mostly be sort of a symbolic show of support as you were talking about to the ukrainian people, the u.s./polish alliance? >> i won't get ahead of the president's remarks. certainly i'm not going to do that. again, the president will make it very clear that the united states will continue to stand with ukraine for as long as it takes. he will continue to call for the kind of international unity that we have seen, not just across nato, but across the world, not just across europe. and i think he will certainly make clear that additional security assistance, additional financial assistance, additional help for ukraine will be coming from the united states, but i won't get ahead of anything specifically. >> a quick follow-up on the chinese spy balloon. this idea that president xi jinping may not have been aware of the order to send this balloon over u.s. soil, what would that tell you if that were true about his grip on his own government? is it possible that it suggests a kind of power breakdown? >> certainly can't confirm these reports about president xi's personal knowledge of that. i would refer you to the prc to speak to their own leadership issues and information sharing. what matters to us is that this was a violation of our sovereign air space. and clearly with intent. now, whose intent? i don't think we have a perfect picture of that right now. clearly without question the intent of the prc. because we know that this balloon belonged to them. and president biden acted decisively in support of our national sovereignty. >> reporting is that u.s. officials briefing lawmakers this week told lawmakers that this is the u.s. intelligence communities -- >> i'm not going to speak about intelligence assessments from the podium. >> thank you. admiral, there has been warnings from the ukrainians as well as intelligence agencies in europe and here, but as the one-year mark of the war approaches, that might be a moment where putin tries to escalate the conflict, maybe even launch some major new offensive, are you seeing any signs of that being in the works? >> what we see, jonathan, is that the russians continue to conduct offensive operations in the donbas area, fighting around back bakhmut remains pretty vicious. clearly we have seen he's willing to continue to barrage the country with cruise missiles, knocking out civilian infrastructure and trying to make life more difficult for the ukrainian people. we do believe he will try to take advantage of the winter months to restock, resupply, rearm, contribute to his manpower in what could be offensive -- renewed offensive operations come spring. but, had we seen all that take shape now, i don't believe we're at a point where we have seen all of that really form. but we're anticipating that. and frankly so are the ukrainians. and that's one of the reasons why you've seen in just recent weeks the kinds of security assistance packages that -- from the united states and from others that are more advanced capabilities, the kinds of capabilities that will allow them to fight in open terrain, combined arms capabilities, armored capabilities, artillery, all of that is designed to help them prepare for whatever the russians might be planning in the spring. all that is to say we do expect as the weather improves the fighting will probably get more vicious. >> thank you. >> hi, john. i have more follow-ups on the lula visit as well as the assistance u.s. providing to turkey. but really briefly can you speak to rumors that there is another chinese balloon above alaska or any other parts of the u.s. territory that the u.s. shot down? >> so i can confirm that the department of defense was tracking a high altitude object over alaska air space in the last 24 hours. the object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet. and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. out of an abundance caution and at the recommendation of the pentagon, president biden ordered the military to down the object and they did and it came inside our territorial waters, those waters right now are frozen, but inside territorial air space and over territorial waters. fighter aircraft assigned to u.s. northern command took down the object within the last hour. okay. >> a follow-up, john, thank you for that. that's helpful. can you give more details on the support that u.s. is providing to turkey, specifically we understand that the uss h.w. bush is on stand by. will the ship be part of any kind of humanitarian efforts? >> i think i updated as much as i could right now. what we're doing is what i put in my opening statements. there are naval assets in the mediterranean, and under the command of u.s. naval forces europe, the commander of u.s./european command designated europe as in charge of the operational coordination for military assets. and he's doing that. i cannot speak to any specific contributions by the aircraft carrier uss george h.w. bush. but there is lots of -- there is lots of capabilities in the mediterranean region that could be brought to bear, but we're working and this is really important point, we're working in lockstep with our turkish counterparts here to make sure that what we're providing is what they need at the scale and the speed that they need, and not, you know, not trying to overwhelm their system with unneeded material or unneeded capabilities. so, there is -- you talked about the bush, but there is a lot of military capability on the continent under the european commanders' authority that could be used, but, again, we want to make sure we're doing this in a -- at an appropriately through turkish counterparts. >> on the visit by -- can you speak about -- >> she's still asking questions. >> i hear you. >> just the last question -- >> go ahead. >> just the last question, can you speak on how brazil can be a partner in monitoring irregular migrations, specifically because the president has been around for africans coming to the u.s. through mexico. >> as i said, i would expect president lula and president biden to talk about the challenges of irregular migration, you saw the vice president just this week holding a conference of some of our neighbors about this call to action to try to get at the root causes and we look and would welcome president lula's ideas and perspectives on how we can get at the root causes of all of the migration in this hemisphere. >> thank you. when i hear news, i just get very excited. so, can we just go back for a moment, so, another aircraft of some sort, airship, balloon, something was shot down today. who owns it? what were the circumstances? was 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. and he wanted it taken down. and they did that. they did it using fighter aircraft, assigned to u.s. northern command. the pentagon will have more to say about the details of this later on this afternoon, it is only just within the last hour. we're calling this an object because that's the best description we have right now. we do not know who owns it. whether it is a -- whether it is state-owned or corporate-owned or privately-owned. we don't know. we don't know. we don't know if it is 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 recovery effort will be made and we're hopeful it will be successful and we can learn a little bit more about it. >> was its appearance like the chinese aircraft? >> no, it was -- 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 sized, right. so much, much smaller. and not of the same -- not -- no significant payload, if you will. >> is it now the policy of the united states that if unidentified aircraft are over u.s. territory that it is likely the president will choose to shoot it down? >> the president will always act in the best interest of our national security and in the safety and security of the american people. >> so the object taken down over alaska -- >> the president ordered it. >> the president ordered it. is it a fair takeaway then that the pentagon regrets not taking down the first balloon before it crossed the entire u.s.? >> i'm not going to speak for the pentagon. the president doesn't regret the way that we handled the first balloon. that time -- first of all, apples and oranges here in terms of size. this was size of a small car, and it was over a very sparsely populated area, but also more critically over -- it was over water, water space when we ordered this down as we did the -- as we did the last one. but completely different size. and the debris field for this, we expect to be much, much smaller than would have been for the other one, that's difference one. difference two, we knew for a fact that the prc balloon was in fact a surveillance asset, and capable of surveillance over sensitive military sites and that it had self-propulsion and maneuver capabilities. there is no indication this one did. the other jone was able to slow down and speed up, it was purposeful the flight path within the jet stream. >> that would suggest that many -- >> well, the pentagon has already spoken to this question about whether or not they should have or could have shot it down over alaska air space. it was hours and hours of testimony yesterday on that. >> on the communications, though, we still don't know, correct me if i'm wrong, we don't know what intelligence or communications could have been collected or what devices they were targeting as i understand it, so that being said, how can the president say it was not a major breach, we don't know that. >> well, what we do know is we knew the basic flight path of this thing. and we were able to take steps at sensitive military sites that we believed would be along the flight path to significantly curtail any intelligence ability that the chinese could get from, from the balloon. certainly curtail anything that would be above and beyond, you know what they normally try to collect through other means. >> thank you, john. was this latest object shot down within the last hour was that based upon any information gleaned from the monitoring of the last balloon over the last -- over the last week, in terms of what you learned about that chinese program? did that inform the decision to shoot this down? >> i think i would be careful saying anything specific to what we learned from that last platform and, you know, we were able to collect some information from it while it was in flight. that's another reason why we let it traverse over land the way it did. but i would be -- i would not say that information gleaned from our surveillance of that surveillance balloon provided insights that permitted this detection and track. >> and as of this moment, are you convinced you shot down -- do you know what you shot down, it wasn't just a harmless weather balloon that, you know, that there was some motivation to fly this over u.s. air space, or -- >> i think we're going to try to learn more. i can tell you it was an object at 40,000 feet. and the predominant concern by the president was a safety of flight issue at that altitude. remember the one that was shot down last saturday was at 65 plus thousand feet. so no threat to civilian aircraft. this one at 40,000 feet could have posed a threat to civilian aircraft and it did not appear to have the maneuverable capability that the other one did. so, virtually at the whim of the wind. >> thank you. so 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 shoot it down? >> yes, my exact words were reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. >> okay. and to given what you said earlier about intent, with regard 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? >> which -- the one from last week? yeah, say that again. >> would the u.s. give any credence to the chinese argument that this thing accidentally veered off course and ended up where it did? >> no. >> so was it targeting specific places? was it targeting military sites? >> what we know is that the flight path executed took it over sensitive military sites. what we also know is that it could maneuver. that it had propulsion capability and steerage capability. and could slow down, speed up, and that it was on a path to transit over sensitive military sites. >> thank you. >> thanks. admiral kirby, on the latest object, you said it did not appear to have the maneuverability, capabilities that the chinese spy balloon had. did it have any maneuverability or was it flying on its own? >> at this time, all i can tell you is that it did not appear to have the ability to independently maneuver. we'll attempt recovery and we'll see what we can learn more from. >> sorry, one more on the chinese spy balloon. we're reporting that the u.s. is about to impose export controls on chinese companies believed to have been involved in the balloon surveillance program. can you confirm that and say when the administration might impose those export controls? >> i'm not in a position to confirm those reports right now. i would refer you to the i think you said this was shot down or landed in the waters or the frozen waters off the coast of alaska, correct? >> that is our initial assessment. >> is the policy still considering the first one was shot down off the east coast and this high altitude object was shot down off the west coast, is the policy at this point in time you can shoot it down if it is over a body of water? >> i wouldn't derive from these two incidents some sort of policy that comes out of it. the president will always act in the best interests of the american people, and international security. last week we were talking about a surveillance asset. that was purposefully flown over the continental united states. in the case today, we're talking about an object, again, we don't know a lot about it, but that at its altitude represented a potential threat to the safety of flying customers, civil air traffic. >> based on your broad and deep experience, who do you think might own or have flown this thing in the air? >> i have no idea. >> has the administration reached out to the chinese to see if they will claim this new object? the state department over the weekend or last few days, since the first spy balloon, confirmed they think the chinese spy balloons have gone over 40 countries. considering that fact and the new development today, what's next on a larger diplomatic front? the u.s. talking with allies about how to police the skies, about how to bring this to the u.n. to figure out what to do? >> we are talking to dozens of nations who we know have been overflown by chinese surveillance balloons. part of this program that the chinese invested in to share with them the context and information we have learned by the forensics we have done since we came in office about this particular program, and i would remind you we briefed congress in a classified setting in august about this, this is not something we haven't been trying to learn more about. we have been aware of it and trying to glean more information from it. and this -- we expect that the recovery of the debris from the balloon we shot down on saturday, last saturday, will help us gain even more information. but we are in the active conversations with many of these countries who we know have been overflown. >> where specifically in alaska was the high altitude object shot down? >> i'm going to -- the pentagon will be talking more about this later. they'll probably have more detail for you, but the general area would be just off the very, very northeastern part of alaska, right near the alaska/canada border. >> near the arctic ocean? >> yeah, in fact that's where it went down on that -- on that northern side of alaska near the canadian border on water that is frozen in the -- yes -- >> over land? >> no, it was. it was. >> okay. and it was shot down within the last hour. when did you -- when did the first -- when did the u.s. first get intelligence that it existed? >> the knowledge about the balloon and the track first came to our attention last evening. >> okay. >> what time thereabouts? >> i don't have an exact time on the clock for you. last evening. >> you ruled out -- not ruled out, but you have not determined it was surveillance in nature, correct? >> we haven't ruled anything in or out. and that's why we're calling this thing an object. and -- >> you just called it a balloon, you misspoke there? >> yes, i'm sorry. >> you can't say it is a balloon? >> you have balloon on the brain right now. this was -- this was an object. just clarify, i'm not classifying it as a balloon right now. it is an object. we're trying to learn more from it. that it landed on what -- on water that is frozen could help us assist and make it easier for us to try to recover some of the debris. u.s. northern command is examining what the possibilities for that are. >> you said you have no knowledge of any outreach to the chinese yet from the administration. are there plans to reach out now? >> i know of no plans to reach out to the chinese, specifically on this. i want to stress again we don't know what entity owns this object. there is no indication that it is from a nation or an institution or an individual. we just don't know. >> or foreign entity, right? >> we don't know who owns this object. >> thank you. thank you. are you tracking any other similar objects at this time? >> i'm not aware of any other tracks. >> i know you said this was due to a civilian aircraft threat. but why not wait until it is over warmer water where you could more easily recover -- >> it wasn't heading over warmer water. it was heading over the arctic. it is not very warm. >> thank you, karina, thank you, admiral. one question on today's incident and then one on a separate subject if i may. given how little was known about this object, at the time that our forces shot it down, is it safe to say that when the president ordered that it be shot down he did not know whether it was a manned or unmanned object? >> we were able to get some fighter aircraft up and around it before the order to shoot it down. and the pilot's assessment was that this was not manned. >> on a different subject, after the state of the union address, minutes after he finished delivering the state of the union address, president biden encountered in the halls of the capitol britney alconis, the wife of your navy comrade who remains in prison in japan. and the president told her we're going to get this done. i wonder if you can tell us if the alconis case figured in the conversation that the president had with the japanese prime minister when he visited here last month, and if you can flush out the president's promise to mrs. alconis. i know generally you don't like to say a whole lot about these kinds of efforts, what can you tell us about what is being done on his behalf? >> i would go back to what i said last time, the president is well ware of this case. and he's well aware of what the family is going through. he's also well aware of concerns by the japanese government with respect to their judicial system. and he's got the team working on this. i'm not going to disclose personal conversations that the president had either with mrs. alconis or with prime minister kishida. but he's well aware of it. he's tracking it. and so is the national security team. >> thank you. admiral, over here, wanted to ask you -- >> i need to watch for the hands. >> one on what you described and the other on ukraine. on the incident that happened in the last hour, is there any line of communication you can describe that has been ongoing over the course of last two weeks on the diplomatic side of things? i know the defense secretary says that his call to his counterpart was not returned from china. on the diplomatic side of things, are there lines of communication between the u.s. and china right now? >> well, certainly, look, we have an embassy in beijing. we have diplomatic discussions routinely happening withbeing. so, of course the diplomatic channels remain open. sadly the military ones do not appear to be open right now. secretary austin made a good faith effort to reach out to his counterpart and was rebuffed. and that's unfortunate. particularly when at times like this you want to keep as open as you can the lines of communication, and the president is committed to that. >> on ukraine, president zelenskyy was in the uk earlier this week. and he received a promise from the uk government that the uk would train ukrainian pilots on nato standard jet fighters. can you tell me if you think that's a good idea, is that something that the u.s. is considering in terms of training ukrainian pilots on nato aircraft as well? >> well if they're going to get western aircraft, then they're going to need to be trained on them. >> they'll get western aircraft? >> that would be up to the nations that may be willing to provide aircraft. i've said it before, probably tired of hearing me say it, but these are all sovereign decisions. and if a nato nation or even a non-nato nation wants to provide capabilities like fighter aircraft to ukraine, that's certainly their decision to make. and one would assume that if you're going to introduce a system into a military, that they have no experience with, that there is going to have to be some training that goes along with that. we're doing it right now. fort sill, oklahoma, we have ukrainian soldiers learning how to use a patriot battery. and outside of ukraine, we're helping train them on combined arms maneuver. so, it is not unusual to do that if an advanced capability is provided, but that's a >> thank you, admiral. isn't there a concern that these objects, the object and the balloon were both discovered when they're already flying over u.s. airspace? should they be detected before they enter the u.s.? >> i think we're going to continue to learn a lot about how these things are or can be detected in a better way. you heard the north com commander talk about certain gaps that he felt he had in his domain awareness. so from this incident last week, we will learn. we will certainly learn about the capabilities of that surveillance asset. we also expect to learn more about our own processes and own systems for detection and tracking. i don't want to get into exactly how this one was detected, but i can assure you that we're going to try to improve our own knowledge base with respect to these systems. >> can you say anything about the proximity of it and its flight path to the oil fields near purdue bay and was there any threat at all to that equipment in that region of alaska? >> i'd refer you to the pentagon for more detail about the track. this all just happened within the last hour so i don't know what the proximity was to oil fields. your second question? >> you know, the oil fields basically. >> again, we just don't know what this object was. it would be difficult for me to point to a threat or a specific concern such as oil fields when we don't really understand what this object was doing. >> and then another question, completely different topic. the russians have said they're going to cut oil output now. what is the u.s. response to that, and will you reach out to opec to compensate different so the price of oil doesn't escalate at a time when you're just starting to see inflation -- >> once again, mr. putin is willing to weaponize energy. and this move if it proves to be true doesn't come as a big surprise as a reaction to the price gap. and it just shows you the lengths which he's willing to use resources like energy, again, as a weapon. what the united states will do, have done, continue to do is work with allies and partners to make sure we can better balance supply and demand and try to meet that need. it's important, we still believe that mr. putin not be allowed to profiteer in an inappropriate way off the oil he puts on the market so he can then fund his military in the field. i don't have any diplomatic outreach to speak to today. we'll talk to allies and partners. opec falls in that conversation. >> thank you, john. the chinese are claiming ownership of the balloon. will you send the balloon back to china? >> there are no plans to send the debris we are recovering back to china. we are going to pull it up off the bottom of the ocean and learn more about this capability. >> iran is building a drone factory in russia and they are receiving drones from russia. how do you view cooperation between north korea, iran and russia. >> i can't confirm those specific reports, but i was up here not long ago talking about the burgeoning defense relationship between iran and russia, which is not good for the people of ukraine and not good for the people of the middle east because it will flow both ways. russian capabilities to very well end up in iranian hands. i could say the same about north korea. i got up here and showed you pictures. we know they're providing ammunition to russia. again, that's not only good for the people of ukraine, it's not good for the korean peninsula and the region there that russia and north korea could be, again, developing a deeper defense relationship. >> just a few more. you said it was discovered last night. was it flying consistently at an altitude of 40,000 feet that entire time? >> roughly, yes. >> were there any sightings by airmen, civilian -- >> no, sir. >> and can you nail it down, tell us when the president gave the order to shoot it down? >> gave the order to shoot it down this morning. >> again, to just keep following up on this same topic, the speed with which you guys -- with which the president apparently decided to shoot it down, having just discovered -- the first intelligence last night and by the morning he was saying shoot it down, was there something more specific about the threat than just generally being in the airspace at which the height of which -- >> the predominant reason, the predominant reason driving the president's decision was the safety of flight issue. >> i understand that. but that's a really big area up there, there's not all that many planes. it's not like it was middle of the northeast corridor. is there no way in which you could have said, hey, airplanes, steer clear of this area until we know better what this thing is, because we're -- in other words, was there some reason -- >> the president wasn't willing to take that kind of a risk in time, because this thing did not appear to be self-maneuvering. and therefore at the mercy of prevailing winds, it's much less predictable. and so the president just wasn't willing to take that risk. >> thank you. you mentioned that there were fighter aircraft who were able to determine that it likely was not manned. were those fighter aircraft able to determine anything else about it from up close that they wouldn't be able to find out otherwise? >> they worked really hard to get as much information as they could about this object. given its size, which was much sma smaller, and the capabilities on the fighter aircraft themselves, the speed at which they were fl flying, it was difficult for the pilots to glean a whole lot of information. not like we were able to glean off the balloon -- not the other balloon, the balloon, thank you, michael, and we also had several days to track that. so there was a limit to how much they could divine. also it was detected at night, and so the first engagement by fighter aircraft late last night was, again, difficult for them. it's just -- it was a small object and these are fighter aircraft flying at pretty high speed. the ability to get a lot of -- to glean a lot of information is limited, which is why they did another flight earlier this morning to see if we could get more. they did the best they could, but the speed and the conditions up there as well as the size of the object made it a little bit more difficult. >> just to confirm, there was a flight last night to do some surveillance. >> that's right. there was at least two that i know of. again, the pentagon will probably have more detail but at least two. last night a couple of fighter aircraft surveilled it to try to glean as much information as we could so we had a sense. then another such flight today and that flight ended up in a shootdown. >> just one more question. >> we're running out of time. >> from the white house podium, do you have a message for whoever is responsible for this aircraft or anyone who may have similar aircraft about what the white house response would be? >> rather than sending some sort of message in that way, i would just tell you that we're going to remain vigilant about our airspace. we're going to remain vigilant about the skies over the united states. as i said earlier, the president takes his obligations to protect our national security interest and those of -- and the safety and the security of the american people as paramount. and he's always going for make -- he's always going to decide and act in a way that is commensurate with that duty. that's the real takeaway here. >> did the u.s. ask brazil to block running warships from docking in rio, and if so, why? >> we did not ask the brazilians to block that. those ships are sanctioned 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