is it time to pop that balloon? i m michael smerconish. it sparked kshs about national security regarding beijing. is it more a about symbolism? secretary of state antony blinken was due to travel to china this weekend. he postponed his trip calling the infiltration a, quote, irresponsible act that created conditions that undermine the purpose of the trip. the public first learned of the balloon s existence thursday while it was over montana, which is home to ballistic missile silos and bomber bases. china is saying it s all innocent. a spokesperson for the chinese foreign min city sits is a civilian air shift used for meteorological purposes affected by the westerlies and limited self-steering capability, it deviated from its course. the chinese side regrets the entry of the ship. but it was a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law. the balloon does not pose a military or political threat and a senior defense official said military officials a advise
this week that their recommendation to president biden was not to shoot this down because of risk to people and property below. so this balloon made its way across a good chunk to have united states, from montana on tuesday and wednesday to where it is now over essentially north carolina where it s reaching the coast and open water beyond that where you no longer have the risk to people and property below. therefore, the question then becomes, does the military change its recommendation and recommend to president joe biden if you go ahead and follow the we ll take care of it, that will be the time and the place to shoot this down. it is worth noting, i ve been watching flight tracking websites pretty much all morning. there we ve seen some note worthy flight activity. a couple refuelling tankers right off the coast of myrtle beach essentially flying in a holding pattern. why is that note worthy? because fighters that could be used to shoot this down might need to refuel as th
now i m being told that is actually a plane after the strike of a balloon and then the balloon then losing shape, going down. security analyst is back with us. juliette, maybe your eyeballs are more trained than mine. we can at least see, perhaps, with a tighter view it looked like that balloon was disintegrating, as we heard an eyewitness describe earlier. can you decipher what s going on here for me? i hear your doorbell. i m sorry. so you ve got the look, the f-22 or f-15, we don t know which ones yet, we ll get a debrief from the pentagon, from areas in the carolinas, the missile would have been launched from them. so what you re seeing on the bottom side is the airplane, what we re seeing now. what you saw was the airplane, not the balloon. and i don t know if we have images of the direct hit. so the balloon is now so this is the important thing for people to remember. the balloon is balloon and cargo. we want the cargo. it s ours now. sorry, chinese, it s ours now
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
security concerns for days. most of the wreckage is believes to be sitting in 47 feet of water at this hour. let s go now to oren at the pentagon. do we think we might have get an update this evening as to whether or not they have been able to secure that wreckage and retrieve it? they ll put a perimeter around it with navy and coast guard assets that were in the area. whether they can retrieve it tonight or tomorrow, that s a different question. 47 feet of water according to a senior defense official, so not that deep, but still it s a question of what s left, what s down there and what shape is it in and how do you bring it up without damaging it further. salvage vessel is on the way. it might not be there in time to do it tonight, but it will get there as quickly as possible to begin. why is that so important? because the pentagon has said repeatedly this was a chinese surveillance balloon that had the ability to maneuver, loiter. and because of that, there s information