Page 836 - Balloon News Today

Welcome to "inside politics." im john king in washington. thank you for sharing a remarkable news day with us. we begin with a brazen spy drama. straight to the pentagon, the briefing on a chinese balloon over montana. >> conducting press briefings in our temporary press briefing room while other primary location undergoes technical renovations and upgrades. we greatly appreciate your patience and flexibility as we work to install some long, overdue upgrades to the pentagon press briefing room. ...

Nature of this? >> absolutely. its a spy balloon. the chinese would take down -- have taken our planes down that werent flying in their air space. they forced them down. we let it go. we keep appeasing the chinese and theyll keep pushing. >> so general, as bob notes, this is just a couple of days after the u.s. moved forward with plans to access military bases that are very close to tw taiwan and based in the philippines, do you think this is a direct response to that or something in the works b...

That its likely filled with helium, with solar panels to provide power, and it is manoeuvrable. there are instruments and sensors to collect data that could be used for science or surveillance. military specialists ive spoken to, though, say its not likely to offer anything more than existing spy satellites can do. this balloon may not represent any significant security threat, but the incident highlights that the growing tension between the two countries now even extends to the skies above rura...

The decoys that the missiles are designed to ignore so trying to shoot at the balloon, theres no guarantee that we would hit it. however, the risk that we would miss or that we would -- if we missed it, that the munitions would carry on down range and be a threat to people on the ground or to buildings or infrastructure on the ground. even if we did hit it and bring it down, where that debris lands can be cannot unpredictable, so there is significant risk in trying to shoot at it with existing w...

Leaders, president biden, vp harris, set to speak at the democrats annual meeting tonight in philly. theyll do so with a little bit of wind in their sails. the u.s. adding more than 500,000 jobs this month. unemployment is at the lowest point since 1969. cnbcs senior economics reporter, steve liesman is going to help us get in the numbers in a second. i want to start with mike memoli, posted in philadelphia. a preemptive apology if we interrupt you, president biden f he makes comments on china w...

Jennifer? >> general ryder, who is controlling this balloon right now? >> again, we know that this is a chinese balloon but beyond that i will not have specifics. >> you say its moving east ward and over the continent u.s., not over montana anymore. is the chinese government controlling the movement of the balloon or is it just floating with air streams? >> thanks, jennifer. im not going to go into any specific intelligence we may have. again, we know this is a chinese balloon and that it has th...

To that? >> well, china has admitted that this is a chinese airship, though they did spend most of the day trying to diffuse tension with washington earlier, and foreign ministry spokesperson said that they were still gathering information and that china had no intention of violating any countrys sovereignty or airspace, and the statement appeared on the ministrys web site, attributing to nobody, confirming that it was a scientific balloon. that it was used mainly for weather research and that i...

They feel like they need to be more looped in. the house majority leader, i should say the speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy has asked for a full briefing of the gang of eight. we know that at least staff of the gang of eight has been given at least somewhat of an initial briefing as to what the pentagon knows about this particular situation. to your question about blinken and his decision not to go, there are senators, members of congress who have already agreed that that was the right decis...

Respect joe biden. communist china is our enemy, and another statement, we have congresswoman elise stefanik saying this should be a wake up call for what she says is bidens weakness on the world stage, and shes demanding an immediate intelligence briefing. you know, in the last 24 hours, less than that, we know that staff for the gang of eight have been given a classified briefing on this issue. its entirely possible it was staff and not the gang of eight itself because yesterday was a flyout d...

Thinking here is to wait until the balloon goes out to sea but then shoot it down. they would have just 1 nautical miles to do this before entering international waters and certainly dont want to create an international incident over this. the white house keeping communications open to china, but even though beijing expressed regret, it was not enough to salvage secretary blinken as trip. this is only further escalating tensions between our two countries. you mentioned the, 12 nautical miles w...