over the skies over asheville, north carolina. now it s possible one of the latest known tracks of the balloon as it flows eastward heading towards the atlantic ocean. more video into our newsroom just a short time ago shows that over clover south carolina, that is a neighboring city of charlotte north carolina, and this is international drama playing out in realtime as u.s. officials ponder their next move. just moments ago, president biden responded to a question about it. listen closely. mister president [inaudible] balloons [inaudible] we re going to take care of it. joining me now is it mr. bce vest of gated reporter dan. dan, what is taking care of it mean? any words from the u.s. officials about these ladies reported sightings? based on what the pentagon has said before right, they said that they were not ready to shoot down when it was overland because they were worried that this really large balloon would break up into debris, and dangerous piece of of debris
any safety risks because there was an urgency here. this balloon is not armed, it does not pose some physical threat to the united states, even from an intelligence perspective. the chinese have much more effective ways of picking up intelligence from the satellites and otherwise. the fact that the president said what he said about taking care of it. now we have the physical fact that the balloon is heading towards the atlantic. these airports in north and south carolina are being closed for the moment. it does seem to set the stage and present an opportunity to have this shot down. it is really not a reversal. i think they ve been preparing for this and contingency planning. once it is not overland, it changes the calculus. general, weigh in for me if you will, you heard the presidents words there, we are going to take care of this. from your estimation, what is taking care of this look like and what are the risks and calculations going into that decision? i think what
announced. and it s basing agreements with the philippines. upping our game against china, and in fact the biden administration is continuing the trump administration policies on this. there actually is some bipartisan consensus on what to do about china in the future. all right mark polymeropoulos, you will stick with me hopefully. general steph twitty, you are sticking with me as well. so thank you for that. we are following this breaking news everybody, top of the hour. 3 pm here on the east coast. i am yasmin vossoughian, you are watching msnbc. we are taking a look at images of the chinese spy balloon that was spotted over the carolina coast. we have now learned just in the last ten minutes or, so that spy balloon has in fact been shot down over the carolina coast. seems as if in the atlantic ocean, we are gonna wear now from u.s. officials that they are currently gathering up the debris or attempting to gather up the debris. as i five conversation was general tweety a
underway to gather debris of the balloon. and that debris is estimated to roughly the size of two school buses. here s what president biden told reporters about the operation last hour. on wednesday, when i was briefed on the balloon, i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down. on wednesday, as soon as possible. they decided it might do damage on the ground. they decided that the best time was when it was over water. so that has been our limit. they successfully took it down. and i want to compliment our aviators who did it. and we will have more to report on this a little later. thank you. what is your message to china? i told him to shoot it down. on wednesday. yes, they said to me, let s wait for it to be now beijing is claiming that it is a weather research balloon. that we have seen floating over the united states. and beijing expressed regret that it accidentally drifted into u.s. airspace. but the pentagon and the secretary of state anthony blinken say that
becomes one of fear and devastating violence and tragedy. the latest in the never-ending epidemic of gun violence in america, the 33rd mass shooting to happen so far this year, at least 11 people were killed at a lunar new year celebration at a billion room in monterey park, california. it is a predominantly asian american suburb of los angeles. the deceased are all in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. officials say that the shooter, 72-year-old asian male, attempted a second attack at another ballroom nearby. that attack was stopped by two patrons. here s how one of them describes what happened. i lunged at him with both my hands, grabbed the weapon, and we had a struggle. we struggled into the lobby, trying to get this gun away from each other. he was hitting me across the face, bashing the back of my head. i was trying to use my elbows to separate the gun away from him, create some distance. finally, at one point, i was able to pull the gun away from him, shove him aside, create