was based on unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisors. joining us now is a member of the foreign affairs committee and former green beret who served in afghanistan, republican congressman michael walt. thank you for joining us. i know you and your staff were deeply involved in assisting with the evacuations at the time. what specifically, what information are you looking to find out today? kaitlan, you re going to hear today from the veterans volunteer groups, the grassroots organizations that had to stand up in a vacuum, frankly, that found themselves as private citizens getting call after call, desperate pleas from people they fought alongside our afghan allies and from americans that were being left behind during withdraw. they found themselves chartering planes, arranging international flights, arranging country clearances.
unfortunately, the president failed that test. i think this entire episode telegraphed weakness to xi and the chinese government. now house republicans are considering passing a resolution that would condemn the biden administration for the way they handled the balloon. it is symbolic. it would set the stage for the president s address. we heard criticism from it republicans. what is the explanation from the white house about the timing? why saturday afternoon was when they decided to finally bring down the balloon? well, what we learned, kaitlan, is when president biden first learned about the suspected spy balloon, his initial reaction was to say well, shoot it down. but now we know that his military advisors told him that wouldn t be a good idea. essentially because the debris that would result from shooting that balloon down over u.s. land could really hurt people on the ground. remember, the payload, the structure really below that balloon was the size of three
haven t been briefed that are all over joe biden right now. they had joe biden shot this thing down against the advice of the military advisors, they krit sues him for that. what we re going to learn is what the tiktok was. much what was the decision made. we may not be able to talk about a lot of value in observing an asset like this. what did we learn by watching this thing over a period of time? when were the decisions taken? most interestingly, what are we going to learn about the equipment? who made the semiconductors that are on this thing? what are the capabilities? we ll learn a lot. speaking of, when you said in the first part of the answer, your colleague on the house intelligence committee mike turner of ohio was very critical of the fact that the balloon was allowed to enter usair u.s. airspace in the first place. listen to. this. this should have never been allowed to enter the united states and it never slu hould h been allowed to complete the mission f you ask some
they need that to send it and study it at quantico with intelligence officials. it will be fascinating to see what they find. dianne gallagher reporting from the carolina coast. let s bring in natasha bertrand. this operation was days in the making. walk us through the details of what it took to shoot down this balloon. reporter: yeah, boris. so yesterday 2:39 p.m. two advanced fighter jets, f-22 fighter jets, struck a single launched a single missile that struck that balloon and brought it down. this was the result of many days of planning, intense planning between president biden and his military advisors and his national security team to try to figure out when the best time to shoot down this balloon would actually be. what they decided, apart from the president wanting so shoot it down pretty much immediately after he was briefed on it, it would be better to shoot it down over the ocean because it would provide less of a risk to civilians on the ground and also because it wou
it s now at 6.5% down from nearly 9% just last year. trace. trace: that s called hockey stick inflation. anita vogel live for us in beening no. let s look at the self-proclaimed most transparent white house in history. white house reporter phil wegmann. the president was eager to get out and talk about the job numbers but as far as the other subjects, nope. it kind of fits this pattern of if it s not good news, it s no news. your thoughts phil. it certainly does. we know at some point the president had a discussion about this chinese spy balloon. it was a decision that had to go to his desk and from the earlier reporting it seems that his military advisors said that it would provoke a risk to the folks on the ground if he took it down. the thing about this though as long as the balloon is in the sky, all we re talking about, to say nothing of the national security risks, this is going to