the fbi is involved in the forensics to determine what it was able to see. one of the points i wanted to raise is the senators coming out of the briefing are acknowledge the limits of our surveillance. we have we are filtering more. we are trying to improve radar. we are tweaking more after the china balloon but we don t really have that kind of eyes. there s a lot of stuff up there. a lot of it is benign. reporter: that s right. when you think about them sort of refining the radar picture here, think about the fact that there is a lot of stuff that s potentially seen on radar that was often dismissed as clutter. when they refined that picture, they have been trying to say, is some of this something we should have been looking at? things like these objects that have been flying at 20,000 feet. we know we heard from the secretary of defense for the first time about this story. we heard from him last night
since the china balloon was seen going across the country. what did you learn that you can help us with, because the administration is saying very openly it looks like these three smaller objects were commercial or benign? well, i think that has been reported, as you point out. we are still trying to get more information about them. they have been shot down in very difficult terrain to recover. we need to recover what was left of those objects as they have been shot down. so we have a better sense of where they are from and what their intent was. after the chinese balloon traversed the united states and got so much attention, i think it s really heightened both the public curiosity and the interest on the part of policymakers to know what this is. there was a very loud cry, as
they were operating in airspace that posed a threat to aviation. i think given that, it was not a mistake. again, that s why i think it s important that we have a clearly delineated policy that people understand so that we know going forward what determines our response in the united states. very credible democratic house member on house intelligence said last night on our air that the costs are prohibitive. we didn t really need to go after them. he sees no evidence that a small balloon or small object like this ever threatens civilian airspace, civilian airliners. they threaten civilian airspace when they are in airspace that planes are flying in. i should correct let me correct myself. there s never been a problem. there s a lot of stuff up there. aircraft have never had a collision or been threatened by
as the biden administration faces more questions about the objects that they ordered shot down over north america, this morning senators received a classified briefing on the china balloon and the three subsequent smaller objects. i think they have information that is not available to us yet. 95% of what was discussed in that room today can be made public without compromising the security of this country. in terms of where there may also still be a gap is really is not, to my understanding, that formal a process that if a university, a private institution sends off some kind of research balloon, how that is appropriately registered. joining me now is democratic senator jeanne shaheen who is on the foreign relations and armed services committees. it s good to talk to you. especially today. you have come out of the briefing. the country has been transfixed
so they posed a threat to aviation. so we need to make sure that they are not threatening the safety and health of people either on the ground or in the air. but we need to be very clear about what our policy is, what it makes sense to shoot down, what we need to know more about before we make that determination. and i think that s what we all hope will become clearer as more information is available. do you think it could be an overreaction to shoot down the three objects, the three small objects which i m told were likely balloons, and commercial, was it a mistake to shoot them down at huge cost for that and for the search for debris, when it was clear that they were benign? was this an overreaction because of the negative political response to what happened with the big china balloon? i think what we heard is that