northern territories? i think the reason we didn t take it down was because as the pentagon did later say, it doesn t represent increased capacity for china, in fact, it s not even as good as lower orbit satellites they use for spying on us. i suspect this had some sort of intent or political message given that it was something obviously very slow moving, stephanie picked up by the united states, it was coming potentially hours before secretary blinken was supposed to come to china and then the fact that it stopped over our air force base in montana and strategic nuclear silos there. i wonder if they were just making some sort of statement we know where your silos are and if things go sideways between the united states and china or taiwan, letting you know you know where they are so i think the chinese have been embarrassed by this because i don t think had anywhere near the impact they hoped but i hope it doesn t derail our diplomacy
fighter jets wednesday and closed the billings, montana airport ordering a ground stoppage in case they shot the balloon down. the president was briefed about his options. president biden was advised by military chiefs about the possibility for civilian casualties if they were to shoot the balloon down over the continental u.s. adding the surveillance balloon does not provide the chinese government with more intelligence than it can glean from existing low orbit satellites. u.s. officials have mitigated the ability for this balloon to survey sites blocking it from doing so and they re learning a lot by monitoring the balloon. dana: a lot of people are wondering why the administration wouldn t have shot it out of the sky immediately especially if it was over an uninhabited mountain areas in montana. from the discussions i ve had.
intrusion and theft of intellectual properties, largest in the history of the world that china has been certainly doing undeterred for quite sometime. jennifer, it is kennedy. to that point, i wonder if this is some sort of diversion, seem like a pretty low-tech apparatus and nothe terribly common and chinese spying tends to happen with lower orbit satellites. can you speak to that? lower orbit satellites and cyber, was this a effort to get more information about nuclear sites? possible. it could be something that really they got caught, they thought they could get away with it. it could be something they knew would be seen and could be a testing mechanism to either embarrass the biden administration or create, somewhat unusual to hear chinese
once the balloon was detected, the u.s. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information. gillian: the u.s. military scrambled f-22 fighter jets yesterday and closed the billings montana airport ordering a ground stoppage yesterday while the president was briefed by the national security team in the event that president biden opted to order the military to shoot down the chinese spy balloon. among those who briefed the president were generals glen van hurricane, the head of northern cam manned norad. he and the other chiefs recommended not shooting counsel the balloon because of the danger posed on the ground from falling debris and the assessment that the surveillance balloon does not provide the chinese government from more intelligence than it can glean from existing low orbit satellites. president biden was asked about the balloon at the white house today but ignored the question. a senior defense official gillian said this is not the first
statement that by the way, as of four hours ago the criminal was still on twitter with a blue truck just to put it out there. right? you mean this whole thing is thing up before our eyes and how do you not look at that and say well it we do enough? the world saw escape score, they were right alongside of us watching it all happen too. and kudos to elon musk, who i think they are low orbit satellites that at least is trying to keep the internet on in ukraine. so the rest of the world can see what is going on there. and also not to always bring it back to energy, but i said a year ago when you intentionally drive down energy production in this country and you drive up the price, you have the power and transparency to vladimir putin, you embolden,