test. test. test. test. . . . hello and a warm welcome to viewers joining us from the united states and all around the world. i m paula newton here on cnn newsroom days after shooting down a suspected chinese spy balloon. u.s. officials currently a second object has been shutdown in alaska grief and devastation in turkey and syria as hopes of finding survivors fade following monday s powerful earthquake, brazilian president sits down for an exclusive interview. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom, with paula. for second time less than a week, u.s. fighter jets have taken down an object flying over american air space, i want you
over american air space. the latest one was sht down friday over alaska s coast over joe biden s orders. it was smaller and not as well equipped as that chinese surveillance balloon. another difference, this object was an altitude of 40,000 feet, and posed a risk to civilian aircraft. the reaction to this object comes after republicans like alaska senator lisa murkowski blasted the biden administration for waiting until the chinese surveillance balloon was safely off the east coast to shoot it down. here she is. at what point do we say a surveillance balloon, a spy balloon coming from china is a threat to our sovereignty? it should be the minute, the minute it crosses the line. and that line is alaska. and republican congressman mike walt says he has questions
accusing u.s. lawmakers of political manipulation. rachel: alexandria, thank you so much. well, let s bring in republican congressman mike gallagher. he is the chairman of the select committee on china. mike, what do you make or i know you, so [laughter] i should say congressman. what do you make of this situation? do you believe that this is a chinese, a new chinese balloon, or is this it s a cylinder. what is it, where s it coming from? what are your thoughts? it sure looks like the second time within a week that the chinese communist party has violated american sovereignty and sent an object into american air space. now, we don t know definitively that this is a chinese drone, but if it turns out thats the, they re testing us. they re testing our resolve. and, of course, the raises the question as to why we didn t shoot down the high at iewd the air balloon over this week when it was over the aleutian islands
washington bureau with more on this, so katie, twice, in a week s time, what are we learning about this second object, and who it might belong to? well, at this point, we still really have more questions than answers, and we do know is that on thursday, the u.s. military observed an unknown object in american air space, off of the coast of alaska, and they set up some military aircraft to try to take a look at this thing, and the pilots weren t really able to tell a whole lot. they can tell it was unmanned, and that it was flying about 40,000 feet which raised concerns for interference with civilian aircraft which understand to be part of the reason if not the primary reason why president biden moved to order on friday for the military to shoot this thing down. but at this point, military and pentagon officials still don t have a lot of answers for us about what exactly this is. they are still calling it an object at this point. they have told us that it is about the size of a small
assistant secretary for infrastructure at the department of homeland security. great to see you. let first talk about what jasmine was talking abouts the approach by the biden administration, two different approaches to this unidentified object that was shot down over alaska versus the spy balloon from last week. how do you reason the different approaches here? good morning. first, assuming that this is china, the audacity and the obvious disregard for american air space is reckless. i think this is incredibly provocative. anyone, or any nation state that might send additional aircraft into u.s. air space, i think the jury is still out as to the intelligence capabilities of this. and frankly, i m not buying the safety rationale for downing this particular aircraft. i will say though that the president and the department of