Page 886 - Capabilities News Today

Weather balloon. it seems to have a lot of stuff beneath it thats monitoring more than temperatures and snow and all of that. but leaving that aside, the administration has said that this has happened in prior administrations, in other words, we have seen this sort of thing in prior firms-- im sorry, presidential terms. now, in the obama years when you were secretary did you see or have anything like this? >> no. i mean, its common knowledge and we tracked it and our sophisticated capabilities a...

This is actually, a very critical meeting that blinken was about to do to beijing. important for beijing as well as for washington, and all got blown up literally by this balloon. >> can you let me know about the chinese intelligence service and their intelligence gathering capabilities? do you see this as deliberate or a screw up? >> probably a little bit of, both i am sure that this is just one of many different aspects of a massive chinese intelligence gathering effort against united states. ...

Able to put wmd and an air balloon in flight 30, 40, 2000 miles above the ground that may enable them to launch a strike against us at some point. ron assures watching very closely. theyve got lots of capabilities as well. this is absolute something have to be concerned about. not just for china but for all of our adversaries. >> picture by craft hat on for just a second period what are we going to be able to learn from the debris if we can recover anything? and follow question to that, are you ...

When they fished it out of the water, which is what they will be doing right now, those are exactly the kinds of questions that they will try to be getting answers to. weve been speaking to different experts and theyre trying to get their assessment of what has been happening. we spoke to doctor thomas. dr thomas withington is an expert in electronic warfare, radar and military communications. he explains more about why its so difficult to the balloon is, judging by all appearances, made of a so...

Can we -- do we have what it takes, can we get together to have a proper response? >> we have what it that takes, but we, again, i think what weve done with our u.s. military capabilities -- ill stay in that lane -- has been eroded over the last couple decades. of course weve had to fight in the war on terror and so forth. but we have to modernize our forces to be capable not only in traditional land and sea and air, but now in cyber and in space. thats where adversaries such as china can take t...

To fall and put people in harms way. >> any potential debris field would be significant and potentially cause civilian injuries or deaths or significant property damage. so, again,r deaths were this ise the calculus in terms of in term our overall assessment. but again, ove well continue to monitor it. well continue to review our options and keepr it youou updated as able. >> but republicans say biden jei looks weakne with each second he keeps this communist balloon in the air. we ought to bring...

Forth. lots to unpack if here but, again, a wake-up call leading to the state of the union on tuesday night that china is, again, they are being very provocative here. last point is, is thermoed earnizinging their nuclear- modernizing their nuclear-capable forces to something weve not seen at least in my lifetime. that is senate. now china modernizing its navy, its air force and its nuclear reach. arthel: yeah. so, quickly, im told i have to let you go, but youre saying this and i have to ask yo...

Missile wont walk onto the balloon, maybe the electronics package thats been blown to smithereens now. >> thats a good question, the sidewinder missile has approximate refuse to deploy, they could use in non- explosive use, it does appear in the video there was an explosion but not a large one so you might wonder whether they took out part of the package to capture a part of it, we see some debris falling that appears to be at least in some part to put together but maybe something of that but un...

Will: thank you, alexandria. you know, we talked about this earlier in the show. i do think this balloon serves a useful purpose, yes, and is well continue the conversation about what it reveals about american leadership and our response. i think its very, very useful as well for the american public, because we can sit here until were blue in the face and talk about the fact that china has a surveillance tool on every one of our phones. not every one, but a great percentage of the american publi...

>> its better to recover it and analyze it and see what we might learn about the capabilities and how the chinese are attempting to do it, and rather than spread it over a long, long debris field. it made sense to not shoot it down until it was over the -- passed over the united states territory. the balloon was used to sur vile sites in the united states and continental united states. how concerning is that? >> its just as concerning that the satellites are up there. the only thing that might h...