coming to you live from studio 4 at the cnn center in atlanta, miami michael holmes. coming up, the suspected chinese spy balloon s journey ended by a single missile by a u.s. fighter jet. they just shot it. see the smoke coming from it? recovery efforts under way at this hour. the incident heightening already tense relations between washington and beijing. and we have all of the angles covered right here. oren lieberman has the view from pentagon. we have reports from the white house and our ivan watson is live in hong kong with china s angry response. we are about to show you the dramatic moment a u.s. side winder missile took out that suspected chinese spy balloon that caused such havoc this week. the balloon was so high up, nearly 12 miles or 20 kilometers that it took a few seconds for the shock wave the reach the ground. have a listen. [ explosion ] the shootdown happened saturday off the coast of south carolina near myrtle beach. it was a sensational ending t
hello and welcome. coming to you live from studio 4 at the cnn center in atlanta, i m michael holmes. appreciate your company. coming up on cnn newsroom i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible. the u.s. has shot down a suspected chinese spy balloon after it traveled across america for days. recovery efforts now under way. china says the balloon entered u.s. air space by accident, heightening already tense relations between washington and beijing. live in hong kong with the latest from there. it s not the only one. the pentagon says a second balloon is flying over latin america. a report ahead. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with michael holmes. we br to show you the dramatic moment a u.s. sidewinder missile took out the suspected chinese spy balloon that has caused so much havoc this week. the balloon was so high up, nearly 12 miles or 20 kilometers, that it took a few seconds for the shockwave to reach the grou
Civilian craft story. you know, that might be true. it doesn t look like it, according to the experts. but regardless, how important is it for the biden administration politically and otherwise to prove the chinese story wrong, to get that stuff out of the water and to an fbi lab and say, see, we were right about this? that s a really good point. again, i think the implications are more significant for international relations than for domestic politics. and i think that will be a very important point that they will want to underscore. there are obviously issues, i m daughter sure you ve talked to other experts who have said exactly why did they need a balloon traversing the u.s. when they have a satellite system that can satellite surveillance that can presumably achieve many of the same goal? this was a provocative act. it was not something that they had to do. they can argue that they were responding to our own spy planes and so forth, but the reality is, in a context in which we
Chamber of congress, there is constantly going to be something, always going to be something between now and election day 2024 that is going to cause congressional republicans to erupt in outrage. it just kind of there s a demand. something has to fill that spot on any given day, and right now this is the thing that will fill it for the next few days. but i suspect it will not dominate political conversation any longer than the balloon itself lasted over the u.s. i do think it is going to kind of advance that debate, and it isn t a debate at this point. it s really more of a movement in both parties toward a harder line towards china, but i think this is more about providing this week s kpaexample for that existing conservative audience for why joe biden is a failure as president. china is sticking with the civilian craft story. that might be true. doesn t look like it according