of the american security program dealing with china, and the republicans have been part of that effort to deal with that and now they re basically flaun derring around trying to find some way to harm this presidency and this administration which has done a terrific job. with regard to balloon, if you want to talk about balloons, let s talk about the three times the balloons transited the united states during the trump period where nobody that i m aware of was ever told it happened. certainly trump did absolutely nothing either with the military or with the public. let s get on with this. we ve got a lot of very good things going on. we have a very strong military. at some point we ll learn that we we ll learn more about this balloon and when we first observed its arrival into the united states territories. let me pivot now if i might
the 2024 election. given the developments this weekend, how do you think his message is being rewritten from friday s job report? lots has happened since friday. foreign policy has a way of creeping up on presidents, and the state of the union i assume will address what happened this weekend with the balloon. there was going to be i m sure a foreign policy section that resolved primarily around ukraine, but i think he ll talk about his strategy with china and how he plans to handle this tension in the coming years without allowing it to get too bad which is his strategy overseas in general. you mentioned biden will be addressing a divided congress on tuesday. he will still try to find moments of aspiration. but he s been in this kind of
and fbi officials will analyze the debris that can be recovered. the biden administration is going to face a lot of questions about why it took so long to shoot down the balloon and why it was allowed to traverse across several states in the united states. no theory, potentially pick up sensitive data and also send that data potentially back to china where it originated from. zach cohen, thanks so much, in washington. i want to bring in cnn white house correspondent arlette saenz. arlette, the balloon floated over the u.s. the same week secretary of state antony blinken was to make this high-stakes visit to china. what were the diplomatic factors at play here? reporter: secretary of state ultimately postponed the trip as this balloon incident unfolded over the country. one of the big challenges for the biden white house going forward would be how to approach this relationship with china.
journalist stefano is live from us from bogota, colombia. what are you learning about this balloon? reporter: quite a few developments in the last few hours because there are some unconfirmed sightings over snz. venezuela. we know the balloons were being seen on the costa rican skies on thursday. then in columbia where i am between friday and saturday, the colombian air force released a statement on saturday evening saying they had monitored the balloon and according to their assessment, that air vehicle did not constitute any threat to the security of colombia, so they just saw the balloon leave the colombian airspace. the balloon was cruising eastward at about 30 miles per hour yesterday in the afternoon. and then very likely it would continue its march over the zen
operation. over the course of the past few days, as this incident unfolded, president biden faced quite a bit of criticism, particularly from republicans that have said that he did not act soon enough and also that this portrays america as weak in its approach towards china. take a listen to senator marco rubio, the vice chair of the senate intelligence committee. they calculated this clearly. it s a message they re trying to send the world. we can do whatever we want, and america can t stop us. reporter: officials at the white house argue that the president was deliberate and acted responsibly in his decision to wait to shoot down that balloon until it was over water. lawmakers on capitol hill are expecting to get briefings very soon. the so-called gang of eight leaders could be briefed as early as tuesday. there will be a senate classified briefing on february 15th. all right. arlette saenz at the white house, thanks so much. let s talk further.