criticizing the white house. why wasn t something done sooner? so i expect that we will probably see some type of call for, you know, some type of public report. what did the fbi find? what was actually on this balloon? so that would make sense to me why the fbi would lead the effort rather than the nsa or cia agencies that don t like to be out there in the public realm. certainly a lot of work to be done. we ll have to wait and see what these analysts actually uncover. all right. it s going to be very interesting to see this unfold over the next several days. it could be sometime, josh campbell, as you are quite aware of these types of federal investigations with multiple agencies. they do take some time. josh campbell, thank you very much. we appreciate it. and thank you for joining me this evening. i m see you here tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern. a special edition of situation room with wolf blitzer is up next. the continual coverage of the chinese sky balloon continues. have a goo
we know military officials were tracking this balloon as it crossed alaska and into the continental united states. it wasn t until it was in a direct path with the continental united states that the military officials decided they needed to brief the president himself. that was on tuesday. our sources tell us biden s initial reaction was he was inclined to shoot down the balloon and the military drew up options to do so. we know by wednesday biden had given the order to shoot down the balloon. military officials recommended he wait until it crossed the united states, not over land anymore, where it crossed into the ocean and could be shot down safely. that saw a few days to happen. an f-22 raptor fired a single missile and took the balloon out of the sky. the recovery effort is already under way. we know navy divers are on scene
observation balloons transited the u.s. territory, probably alaska as well as the continental. we don t know. we were never told about that. there were no intelligence briefings during the trump period about those three times in which this happened before. so then i wonder, when you say you believe there was important intel being grabbed, that s still being met by a lot of criticism from republicans who are looking at this as the president just waited too long, the white house waited too long. now we know from the president that he was advised to wait until it was over water. there are republicans who say this exhibited a certain level of weakness, the amount of delay that this balloon was allowed to traverse a good part of the united states before being taken down. what is your response to that or
coast? do you think that was part of the strategy? i do. i do. we can surveil surveillance programs, and we do it. we do it all the time in many, many different ways. yes, i m absolutely certain we were surveilling it. i m absolutely certain that we were listening, observing very carefully how the balloon was communicating back to china, and we probably know as much about probably more about this than the chinese do. and they re not happy. we have in our hands or will shortly have in our hands whatever information they have. we ll be able to determine how sophisticated it is or not. it is an intelligence trophy that we will be using. keep in mind this is not the first time this has happened. during the trump administration at least three times these
for wherever business takes you. comcast business. powering possibilities. officials in costa rica and colombia have confirmed sightings of a large white balloon similar to the one the u.s. military shot down off the coast of south carolina yesterday. the pentagon confirmed a second suspected chinese sky balloon is currently traveling across latin america, but its exact location right now is unclear.