Page 824 - Balloon News Today

First question, i appreciate it, we have contacted the prc, i will not get into their reaction, i refer you to them for that. we clearly communicated this balloon is valating u.s. airspace and international law and this is unacceptable. thank you. >> over here and here. >> thank you, sir. is the pentagon looking at any possibility of altering the course of the balloon, taken to location to shoot it down in a rural area? >> monitoring and reviewing options, i will not go into specifics. sir? >> t...

Still up there in the air near our military installations. the time is now, lets get this thing out of the air. >> i want to bring in nbcs courtney kube, she broke the story. jake sherman, an msnbc political contributor. i know this came up at the pentagon briefing that wrapped up just a few minutes ago. tell us what did we learn, but what are also still the outstanding questions? >> reporter: yeah, so it dominated the pentagon briefing. thats for sure. one of the big questions that ive been ask...

Down this balloon, that was an option, and so that was something that was taken into consideration. again, because we assess currently it does not pose a military risk to people on the ground, we continue to monitor and review options. thank you. >> back to ely and up here. >> thank you. how big is the balloon that youre tracking? is it -- have you picked up, is it leaving anything in its wake like sensors? >> so on your latter question, ill not get into intelligence, we do continue to monitor t...

Time, so in the middle of the night, he brought together the chairman of the joint chiefs, the head of north common norad, he called them all together and said lets figure out what this thing is doing and where it could be heading and whether action needs to be taken. when they discussed the possible courses of action to take, one of those included taking it out. and it got to the point where on wednesday norad actually brought in aircraft, including an awacs to try to surveil this craft, this b...

Point, in order to try to establish leverage over the other. thats whats going on. and at the same time, there was, obviously, this trip that was planned by the secretary of state. i think he was right to cancel it because theres so much attention focused on this balloon it would undermine his ability to have any effective dialog. but also, i guess, we hope that ultimately things will settle down and they will be able to get back to negotiating table. but right now, its a very tense situation be...

Would be significant and potentially cause civilian injuries ore deaths or significant property damage. this is part of the calculus in terms of our overall assessment, we will monitor and keep you updated as available. here and here. >> thank you. following up on the balloon question. do you conversation with chinese have they indicated to you what is inside the balloon to prove the point it is a civilian balloon and does that assessment differ from your assessment what is inside the balloon an...

Balloon hovering over montana was not intended for surveillance. well track that now with greg palkot from london with details. >> this is a remarkable story. we get a bit more clarity in the past couple hours about this. yes, it has big ramifications. the pentagon had said it is a chinese high altitude surveillance balloon traveling above commercial air traffic not presenting a military or physical threat. someone spotted it from the ground in montana wednesday and confirmed yesterday. the u.s....

Mill and now, using this as he says in case this unravels. >> look, you cant fly something like this without thinking it could unravel. so it is not clear why this happened, but of course, we conduct these surveillance missions in the chinese neighborhoods all of the time, and they do it, too, but getting caught here is why he is making it clear that they have violated the sovereignty and the air space of the united states. >> i want to get into the difference of the satellite spying and balloon...

>> alex mar. lets go to kylie atwood. this happens, the timing is fascinating as the secretary of state, antony blinken, about to go to beijing. that trip postponed. it comes if you look at the inbox polite way to put it of issues between the united states and china, it was pretty crowded, complicated and intense and the chinese send a spy balloon over the continental united states. what are u.s. officials saying? can they answer why and why now? >> well, that is the problem here, is that they c...

Capitol hill. first secretary of state to go in six years, chris. >> six. >> reporter: which would have been a big statement. a few things worth noting. number one, members of congress were caught off guard by this, meaning there were briefings this week in front of senate intelligence and in front of the armed services committee where this was not mentioned, and members of congress like nothing less than finding things out from the news media and from reports, which they did from courtneys grea...