Page 823 - Balloon News Today

Classified? >> phil, right now what were not going to do is get into an hour-by-hour location of the balloon, were monitoring it closely. right now it is over the center of the continental united states, that is specific as ill get. >> does the public not have a right to know? >> the public has ability to look up in the sky and see where the balloon is. thank you. >> general, you said balloon is maneuverable, so does that mean it is not drifting? >> so the balloon is maneuverable, clearly it is ...

Not to get on the record answers, somewhat understandable, this is a spy balloon, a lot of information is classified and the u.s. government doesnt want to give away what it knows and how it knows it, they are walking this difficult line. it is i think the most interesting thing that ive learned in the last 24 hours, there was serious consideration about shooting the balloon down, it is not just a balloon, it is the size of two to three buses and has heavy equipment underneath and it may have be...

Began tracking this balloon and been tracking it several days now, im told they began to mitigate ability of that craft to be able to gather information, surveill the sites in montana where the nuclear silos are and so they feel pretty confident that this spycraft is not necessarily able to continue gathering information and so they wont say how they know that or how they are managing to control that. i think what was interesting, i asked who is controlling this balloon at this point and there w...

Over billings, montana, on wednesday, when all this was going down. they will not say where it is, other than to say it is still over the continental u.s. a defense official telling me theyre watching it minute by minute, and reserve the right to still take some sort of action if they decide to. >> the president very specifically closed the door to questions in the last hour. we know secretary blinken postponed his planned trip to china. how is the white house trying to navigate this? >> reporte...

Their controls, and now it is under the controls of the winds, and now we are learning that blinken is not going, because of the tense time between the u.s. and the chinese governments. just this week, we have heard that the u.s. is going to be opening up new military bases in the philippines. we saw a u.s. air force general predict that there could be war with china in 2025. and so this is going to ratchet up the tensions between china and the u.s. we know that they have summoned the charge dea...

The full knowledge of the chinese, and if it is their vehicle and they control it, demand them to bring it for the ground, and if they cant do it, so then we have the military option to do so. i think that for the many reasons it is the possible course, and that is something that u.s. military should manage to bring it down to the ground. >> good point. jamil, this balloon is not inconspicuous to the u.s., and it is not small by any stretch of the imagination, and when you were talking about wha...

Get. thank you. go to matt. >> you said at that point, the balloon doesnt pose any risk to citizens. how is it the u.s. can assess that given at altitude and not getting eyes on it and assessing the equipment onboard? secondly, any alternatives being considered to shooting it down or take this balloon out of the sky in tact to get a better look at that equipment? >> yeah, so again, this is a surveillance balloon, hovering, operating about 60,000 feet. clearly we did a very close assessment in te...

Says, but it is a civilian airship used for research are the words of the foreign ministry, and it is said to be the size of three buses. china says it accidentally drifted off course. and the sources says that china cannot manually control it, but how did it get there in the first place? the continental u.s. is a big target. >> yes, what happens next is the big question. the pentagon says it is not a military or physical threat to the people on the ground, but it is not clear why it is there. a...

So and learning a lot by monitoring the balloon. >> harris: quickly before i let you go. i havent found this information anywhere and you mentioned that theyve been tracking this balloon for some time. where did they start to track it and how many days have they said from the pentagon? >> they said last night when we spoke to a senior u.s. defense official that theyve been tracking it for several days but i think the point at which they began tracking it is still a classified information. >> har...

>> would pose threat to -- >> there is a -- it is surveillance balloon, so there is a surveillance capability underneath this large balloon, right? a blimp has a basket, right? there is a basket underneath it, in laymans terms. large enough to be concerning, if there were debris field. all right, last question. >> any -- communication with china with respect to the balloon? >>en ga, weve communicated at multiple levels and leave it at that. >> is it -- is it ammunition? >> it is surveillance bal...