shoot down that chinese flight as soon as possible. the pentagon waited until safely over the atlantic. now there are more questions about why the white house did not brief the public about the situation with the present did not act sooner senator marco rubio believes try to use the aircraft to send a larger message. is not a coincidence this happens leading up to state of the union address. leading up to blinken s visit to china. chinese do this to be spotted they knew we would have to react to it as just a bullet it s a message to try to sum the world that we can do whatever we want in america cannot stop us. arthel: fox team coverage for you bright alexandria hoff has more reaction from lawmakers in china as charles watson, he is in south carolina with an eyewitness account of the shoot damper first up lucas tomlinson life in the white house with the reporting, lucas would you have? u.s. navy s dispatch three warships to calm the waters off of south carolina salvage cr
over the western united states. it may have come all the way from china. national security correspondent jennifer griffin has details from the pentagon. hi, jennifer. good evening, gill i can t believe. the pentagon says it has detected and been tracking for the past several days a chinese surveillance balloon that entered u.s. airspace and appears to have been sent bye bye jing to spy on sensitive sites in montana. one of three sites where the u.s. houses it s siloed nuclear weapons. nbc first reported the news. a senior u.s. defense official just briefed reporters on the balloon which is still hovering over the continental united states. adding the u.s. government has very high confidence that this surveillance balloon was sent by the peoples republic of china. the balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground. instances of this kind of balloon activity have been