you re live in the cnn newsroom. i m jim acosta. we are following breaking news at this hour. the president declaring moments ago that he ordered the pentagon to shoot down the chinese spy balloon as soon as possible. the u.s. is in a recovery effort after a u.s. fighter jet launched a precision strike on the chinese spy balloon. it came after days of watching it float from montana, to missouri to the carolinas. here is another video of that strike. this is a tense moment in u.s./china relations. the world will be watching in the hours and days ahead. let s get straight to cnn s oren liebermann at the pentagon. oren, what more are you learning? i understand you were listening to officials explain how all of this went down. what can you tell us? it started on wednesday when president joe biden gave the authorization to shoot down the chinese balloo n as soon as possible. there were tankers and others to shoot this down. it was an f-22 that fired an a 9 side wind er. the ai
what trump s innermost circle thought of his election fraud lies. detached from reality was the polite way of putting. president biden wrapping up a speech in philadelphia to the aflcio convention. the president s argument, times are tough, but he should be trusted to get us through the economic pain. and the president got political saying a republican wave in november would bring a renewed attack on two sources of security. the president says republicans would put programs like medicare and social security at risk. our cnn white house correspondent is traveling with the president in philadelphia. john, the president was relaxed because he was among friends. talked about the economics, but he also talked politics. he did. look, this was a president, john, who was reveling in the applause of his friends in the union movement. he s always said from the beginning of his presidential campaign that he s a union guy. so he talked about the positive aspects of his economic record.
classroom, where all those 21 victims were killed. but in an exclusive interview with cnn this morning, chief arredondo is contradicting that. he says he is in touch with the department of public security. let s go straight to cnn producer aaron cooper, he just spoke with arredondo. aaron, what did he tell you? reporter: it was just that, he told me that he is in touch with the texas department of public safety every day. i asked him about the comments that they had been hoping to speak with him, to have an interview with him, and he had not been responsive, he repeated that he was in contact with them every day. he said he was focusing on the families. he was not did not want to talk about the investigation, did not want to talk about details of what was going on, but wanted to focus on the families. i asked him about being sworn in as city council member here in in his hometown in texas, last night. he told me that was a private affair, not something they wanted publi
militarily to defend taiwan if it comes to that? yes. you are? that s the commitment we made. now, a white house official be the pentagon tried to walk back the president s comments, insisting the decades old policy of strategic ambiguity has not changed. but the defense secretary had a different explanation than the president when asked if biden s comments could mean putting troops on the ground. putting troops on the ground defend taiwan? our one china policy has not changed. we reiterated that policy in our commitment to peace and stability across the taiwan strait. cnn s jeremy diamond is in tokyo. this is not the first time that president biden said something like this about taiwan. reporter: that s right, alison. it s certainly not, and that is what is is critical to understanding biden s words here. back in august, president biden said we would respond if there s an attack on taiwan. two months after that, he said the u.s. had a commitment to if it were
adding to already-tense relations between the u.s. and china. reporter: just again speaks volumes. they are a greatest threat. they are a threat, and we need to take it serious. that was jim reporting. and u.s. and navy coast guard ships are securing the perimeter near the area of the downed chinese spy balloon. we have more coming up in a moment. stay with us. live in the cnn newsroom. s doi. and that s. how you collect coins. your money never stops working for you wiwith merrill, a babank of america company.