is it time to pop that balloon? i m michael smerconish. it sparked kshs about national security regarding beijing. is it more a about symbolism? secretary of state antony blinken was due to travel to china this weekend. he postponed his trip calling the infiltration a, quote, irresponsible act that created conditions that undermine the purpose of the trip. the public first learned of the balloon s existence thursday while it was over montana, which is home to ballistic missile silos and bomber bases. china is saying it s all innocent. a spokesperson for the chinese foreign min city sits is a civilian air shift used for meteorological purposes affected by the westerlies and limited self-steering capability, it deviated from its course. the chinese side regrets the entry of the ship. but it was a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law. the balloon does not pose a military or political threat and a senior defense official said military officials a advise
sent to a friend about an hour before the coroner says he was killed. you see alex looking a at a tree but he s wearing a blue dress shirt and pants and loafers. opposed to tennis shoes that were clean and neat when police arrived. and that s been a big issue. it s another one of those things, who are you going to believe? what you see or what you re being told? i think the lawyering in this case has been excellent. that which i have been watching. i m sure you probably share that from being in the courtroom. i m envious of you being there. there are a lot of things that have been raised so far in the prosecution s case that without alex taking the stand, i don t know how the defense is going to satisfactorily fill in those gaps. final thought from you. i think there was a lot more this week from the defense that alex may need to address these things himself. he may need to hear from him how
insurance policy that he was going to collect, then it would make sense. but why would such a diversion have done anything for him? i don t get that part. that s the defense argument. they say they want to say this is a bad guy, but that doesn t follow that because he may have done something bad. another part of his life he would kill his wife and son. there s no evidence of that. it s just also one of those things where there s no text messages that show discord. there s no evidence that maggie was unhappy in any way. so it just this information should not come in. it s too prejudice shl to the jury. final issue, the wardrobe chapg. that was significant. i m watching this thing from afar. you re in the courtroom every day. what am i talking about? there are two significant pieces of video evidence. we talked a little bit about the video where you can hear his voice, but there was a short snapchat video that paul had
the chinese side regrets the entry of the ship. but it was a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law. the balloon does not pose a military or political threat and a senior defense official said military officials a advised president biden not to shoot the balloon down due to fear of the debris posing a safety threat. i said the violation of our sovereign air space should not be a partisan issue. many are question ing why we ar taking it out and they are coming from the right. florida senator marco rubio, a member of congress s gang of eight briefed on national intelligence matters, he tweet ed it was a mistake to not shoot down that chinese spy balloon when it was over a sparsely populated area. this is not some hot air balloon. it has a large payload of sensors the size of two city buss and the ability to maneuver
it could point to instability inside the regime, disagreements between the military and others, but it would have been the chinese ruler testing the reactions of the united states. and really we should have shot this down because by not doing that, we convince the chinese we re incapable. they already believe that. that s been the propaganda line. i m not say ing that the chines are right, but it doesn t matter where the chinese are right in their assessments of the u.s. what matters is what they believe. what they believe is very dangerous because it could push them to do things which can t be undone. i think what i hear you say is it was a test and we failed. i want to put on the screen and i ll treated you an opinion piece from the washington post on exactly this issue that just caught my attention.