Transcripts For CNN Dionne Warwick Dont Make Me Over 20240706

The coast of myrtle beach, South Carolina. Tonight, military crews are jam bling to recover the wreckage, and china is responding angrily. Meanwhile, President Biden says he and u. S. Military leaders decided to wait until the balloon completed its crosscountry journey and was safely overwater before shooting it down. Listen to this. On wednesday when i was briefed on the balloon, i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible. Cnn has Team Coverage of this extraordinary moment in u. S. China relations. I want to start with cnns Orin Lieberman over at the palm. Walk us through what happened earlier today. This was days of planning to get to this point, to figure out how best to shoot this balloon down and where best to shoot this balloon down. In the end, the Department Of Defense recommended waiting until it was out overwater and the prevailing winds over the United States, especially over the course of the past day, took it out over the waters of north and South Carolina, the critical moment there, the air force and u. S. Northern command launched f22 fighter jets out of Langley Air Force base in hampton, virginia, towards this air craft, as well as a number of other support aircraft, f15s, as well as tankers to refew the operation according to a Senior Defenses operation. They fired an an a9 sidewinder, heat seeking short range, single shot, single kill. You can see the jet. Theres the f22 on the left that pierced the balloon, and the payload that was under it came falling down from a height of 60 to 65000 feet, according to a Senior Defense official. The f22 that fired that shot was just below it at 58000 feet. Would feel wolf . So what happens text, orin . I understand the u. S. Military as to recover whats left of the balloon and what was inside . Exactly. This goes from shooting it down to see what intelligence you can gain from it and what you can learn of the navy and the coast guard already had assets in position in preparation for the Recovery Effort and now that commences. The Senior Defense official says the wreckage is in about 47 feet of water, so not all that deep. It could have gone much deeper, which makes it easier to recover, but it is still not an easy proposition. Theyll establish a perimeter around it, bring a Salvage Vessel as quickly as possible to the area, and see what they can bring up. Keep in mind this was a Payload Hanging under a balloon, so they have to figure out what of it held together as it fell from six a thousand feet, nearly 12 miles high and crashed into the ocean below. Everything they can find they will want to find to see what they can learn from it. An intelligence gathering operation to find out what tech the chinese had onboard that balloon. Were constantly getting new information. I want you to stand by. Ori, in lieberman at the palm. Right now i want to go to the white house. Arlette is there. What are you hearing there right now . Well, wolf, president bush has been emphatic in stressing he ordered his Military Leaders to shoot down this balloon as soon as possible when he had discussion with them on wednesday. Now, President Biden was flying onAir Force One from syracuse, new york, to hagerstown, maryland, as he made his way to camp david for the weekend as this operation was undertaken by the military. And he talked to reporters about some of the considerations that were given as he talked to the military about making this operation become a reality. On wednesday when i was briefed on the balloon, i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible. They decided without doing damage to anyone on the ground, they decided that the best time to do that was when they got overwater, within a 12mile limit. They successfully took it down and i want to complement our aviators who did it. Well have more to report on this a little later. Thank you. What did they say about china . Whats your message to china . You were saying the recommendation was from your National Security i told them to shoot it down. Is on wednesday. On wednesday . They said to me, lets wait until its the safest place to do it. So President Biden really trying to make clear there that he gave this order to his Military Team on wednesday. Of course, they took all of those various considerations about where exactly to shoot down this balloon. There were those concerns about doing it over land. They were trying to prevent any potential risk to american lives and ultimately settling on shooting down this balloon overwater. Now, this all comes as President Biden has really faced a chorus of criticism from republicans, some mocking him, some just simply saying that his strategy in this situation has shown weakness. They have argued that he needed to take steps earlier in the process to stop this balloon from flying across the United States, and of course this is incredibly tense diplomatic moment for the u. S. And china. And potentially, it could become even more tense. Our white house correspondent, thank you very much. Lets discuss whats going on right now with the former u. S. Defense secretary, william cohen. Mr. Secretary, thanks for joining us to want. This is a very significant development, obviously. As you know, there was a lot of criticism from republicans over President Bidens handling of this issue, but the balloon is now down. Did you think it should be shot down sooner or was this done correctly, in your opinion . Absolutely not. I think President Biden acted president ial, and i wanted to commend him and Secretary Of Defense lloyd austin and the entire team, as well as our aviators, for having shown the kind of restraint and responsibility that we expect our military to engage in. And i would venture to say if he had ordered the shoot down much earlier and any americans had been injured, the same people calling for him to have shot it down early would be on him saying he acted recklessly. So no, he acted president ially. He clearly wanted to wait until this big balloon was over the water and all the wreckage and what was inside the balloon couldnt hurt anyone on the ground. What do you think, mr. Secretary, was chinas intended purpose in sending this huge balloon over the continental United States . Well, it really is baffling. I could paraphrase churchill, its sort of a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of a balloon. We dont know what their motivation may have been, why they would do something so obvious, why they would do something deliberately at this time as were trying to at least reengage diplomatically. So it doesnt make a lot of sense, and thats why it was so important for us to understand what they were trying to do with this technology and was it to interrupt communications and to what end in and secondly, we could take advantage of our own capability as theyre flying over. So i think the questions will have to be when did we know that this did not pose a significant or any military or National Security threat . When did we cover that and decide for ourselves we could wait until it got to a safer place to take it out . I think those are the kinds of questions we have to ask and then have answered. Im sure the u. S. Military and Intelligence Community will be doing a full review, Lessons Learned are critically important right now. As you know, mr. Secretary, most of the balloons wreckage is in relatively Shallow Water out there just about 47 feet deep. As china possibly, possibly surrendered more intelligence than it actually gained by dispatching this balloon over the u. S. . You know, its really hard to know what they were doing, because as we all know, the chinese spy on us on a 24 and seven basis, every day, every year. Theyre monitoring everything. As other nations are doing and as we are doing. So it doesnt make sense for them to have done this. It may turn out, although im skeptical, that it was not an intelligence gathering system, because it seems unnecessary they would do that. But in the meantime, we have to remain skeptical. I think a message has been sent to the chinese of the message came in the form of a Sidewinder Missile taking the balloon out that we have the capability to react in any way thats in our interest to do so. So well have to wait for more information and i think it will be important for our Secretary Of State to get back to a meeting with president g. Seeing its reasonably possible. Just following up on that, after the chinese spy balloon appeared over the United States, the Secretary Of State, anthony blinken, actually postponed his trip to beijing. He was supposed to be there these days. Do you agree with that decision, to delay the trip . I do, because had he gone over without knowing what were finding out or hope to find out from the wreckage thats being retrieved as we speak, bees had he gone over there and just complained and chastised them, as we have been doing publicly, without having the full evidence, then i think we would have been at a handicap or he would have been handicapped at that time. Were going to get as much evidence as we can and then well go over there, renew certainly our relationship, tense as it is, and weve had these moments in the past where the bombing of the Chinese Embassy took place, when one of our aircraft was knocked down over hunan in china by one of the jets they threw up recklessly. Weve had these tense moments before, but the problem is were dealing with a near peer competitor and there are nuclear power. We have to deal with it responsibly, and thats why i say joe biden acted responsibly in the way he has carried out his president ial office. Well, on this point, mr. Secretary, are you concerned that the u. S. China Tension right now is escalating dangerously . And i ask the question, because a top u. S. Air force general just the other day was suggesting the u. S. And china could go to war, could be in conflict by the year 2025. Well, actually, it could happy in moment if we dont handle the relationship right. If we were to do something or they do something presently torely that we see as a threat or price versa, we could be in a Third World War with china. We need to be prepared to go to war with china, with any other power that threatens us, but nothing should be seen as inevitable. And always having the situation historically where you have an existing power, the u. S. , and a rising power, china, there has been conflict most of those occasions in the past. We need to do whatever we can to prevent that, because no one on the planet will win if theres of a nuclear or exchange or competition militarily between our two countries. Good point, mr. Secretary. Thank you. So much for joining us. William cohen, former u. S. Defense secretary. So how difficult will it be right now to retrieve this spy balloon . We dig into the Recovery Efforts that are going on. Thats coming up. Plus china is now publicly responding to the supply balloons destruction. What are they saying . Stay with us. 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Fighter jets off the coast of South Carolina. A source tells cnn that Government Agencies worked through the week to try to find the right time and the right place to intercept the balloon, which had floated across the country for days. Navy divers will assist as needed in recovering whats left of the balloon and what was inside the balloon, which is now in the Atlantic Ocean. There are also unmanned vessels that could help retrieve it. Cnns tom forman is joining us with the magic wall right now. Walk us through where the balloon went down, how deep it is, the water where the wreckage is right now and how this Recovery Effort may play out. I can tell you right away this is what theyre interested in. The payload, a central core of what looks like solar wings hanging from the outside. And when this thing was destroyed up here, you see that part dropping cleanly away down here toward the ground. Ive been doing a lot of math on this to look at where it came from. From over six a thousand feet, recalculating, weve been talking about Terminal Velocity for a sky diver being 120mile an hour. Lets say this weighs as much as as a car and it could be more. With a higher mass, the Terminal Velocity might be 500mile an hour. What does that mean . That means when it hit the water down here, really its the same as running into a concrete surface. Huge amount of damage would be done to it when it hit. If it youre imagining this all intact at the bottom, thats not really very likely. So recovery, you know, although its only in 47 feet of water, thats good, because even amateur scuba divers go that deeply. If it you have a skilled team working here, this is fairly favorable, the weather is favorable, but theyre going to have to start sorting through this debris. Theyll start by cataloging everything. Thats normal procedure. Figuring out where it is. Prioritizing what they want to bring up that might give them the biggest reward for all of this. And then coming up with a scheme to actually raise it through a series of cranes going down, maybe airlifted bags where they put them in to lift pieces up at piece at a time, trying to keep it all in order and seeing what they can pull together out of this. But it really is important to remember, theres a very good chance that it did go in at 500mile an hour, 600mile an hour. At that speed, the impact is huge. The damage is huge. Theres a lot to be learned from what is left, but if youre imagining this lying at the bottom of the ocean the way we saw it floating over the country, floating for more than 8,000 miles from china, its not going to be that way. Tom foreman, thank you very, very much. Right now i want to bring in retired lieutenant general, mark hurtling, former commanding general of the u. S. Army europe and 7th army. Thank you for joining us. Earlier today you said thanks to electronic jamming, you dont think the chinese got much intelligence from u. S. Military bases that this balloon was flying over, but you think they did gather valuable information on how the United States responds to a threat like this. Elaborate a little bit, if you dont mind. Talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah. Certainly, wolf. In these kind of things, what youre talking about is a a back and forth in terms of Intelligence Agencies. Now, they can certainly get a lot from signals intelligence, maze, the kind of intelligence where youre looking specifically at targets. If those arrays that tom was just talking about were the collection devices on that balloon and they were jammed or they were hindered in some way and i believe they were, because the u. S. Has the capability of doing that, and over a long period of tracking, that can certainly be applied, then with the Chinese Government, what theyre probably looking for is what are the techniques the United States is using not only from the standpoint of military tracking the device, doing things like communicating about the device, theyre listening in on those kind of things, which we do to other countries, they do to us, but also decisionmaking processes. Not just in the military, wolf, but also in the government. You know, there will probably be reporting in the next several days about the number of demarshes issued by the United States against china, saying this is not something thats acceptable in the international community. Im sure thats happened more than once, knowing what goes on at em bassies. So youve combined the kinds of actions. I think china wants to see how does the United States react to a Balloon Flying six a thousand feet above its territory across this that i go . They know were going to reacts militarily to it one way or another. They also want to see, how does the government treat this . What kind of divisions are in the government . What kind of open insults are going on toward the president and his administration . How are the people of the country feeling about what is taking place . Now, the chinese are also doing the same kind of Balloon Activity in south america. We dont know exactly where it is. We shouldnt been told that by the u. S. Government. But china also has a fleet of these kinds of balloons that they could use for this kind of intelligence collection. And to me, it just doesnt make sense, when you can get intelligence from satellites using these kind of balloons that are visible passing over a country. Even before, general, the u. S. Retrieves any of the debris in the Atlantic Ocean right now, what kind of things has the u. S. Military actually learned about china during this event over the past few days . Yeah. The same thing. You know, just what i was talking about is what china is learning from us in terms of the way we react to Something Like this. Were learning a lot about how the chinese react to this. Why are they doing things like this . How are they collecting information . What kinds of things are they looking for . This balloon evidently potentially had some type of guidance system, probably propellers on a balloon, that took it across this approach across the country that over flew several military bases. Not just the ones in the northwest, but also in the central part of the country and even in the south. Some of the error ins Air Force Bases and even some of the army bases. So i think, you know, the u. S. Government is looking at what china is doing, how theyre doing it. Sometimes china can be very clumsy in their intelligence collection, and im sure that our Intelligence Agencies and our Department Of Defense have learned an awful lot about how china wants to collect intelligence and where theyre collecting it. The fact that this particular balloon went across the United States and others have ghana cross taiwan, south we can, ande establishing a profile on what china is trying to do. The bottom line, do you think the u. S. And china are actually moving closer to a real conflict right now . As you know, the top u. S. Air force general is suggesting there could actually be a conflict, a war between the u. S. And china by the year 2025 and theres norm us, enormous tension right now between the u. S. And china over taiwan. It is freedom of navigation exercises that the u. S. Navy and other navies have been conducting in the straits of tie wine, the kinds of things china has been doing, Artificial Reefs and missile strikes they have been rehearsing and practicing across the country. Ive got to admit, i am not a chinese expert. I have been to china several times. I know how their army works. To me, it seems like certainly in the last several years that tensions have been increasing between us and china. As far as the four star general who was talking to his troops and saying be prepared for war, you know, truthfully, wolf, i think thats been over blown a little bit. I know there were several occasions in my career where you try and fire up your subordinates by saying, hey, our job is to be ready for war at any time. Im sure that was probably a part of the hyperbole were going in that particular air force four star who told his troops to get ready for war. It was pretty alarming. As usual, thank you so much for joining us. Still ahead, chinas out tonight with a very strong statement after the shoot down of their balloon, saying the United States is, quote, overreacting. Well get the latest from our correspondents whos there in in correspondents whos there in in in the region. Stay with us. This is a Special Edition of the Situation Room. But that cough looks pretty bad. Try y this robitussin honey. The real honey you love, plus the powerful cough relief you need. D. Mind if i root through your trash . Robitussin. The only brand with h real honeyand elderberry. Thats why qulipta® helps whats going on inside. Qulipta® gets right to work. In a 3month study, qulipta® significantly reduced monthly migraine days and the majority of people reduced them by 50 to 100 . Qulipta® blocks cgrp a protein believed to be a cause of migraines. Qulipta® is a preventive treatment for episodic migraine. Most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and tiredness. Learn how abbvie could help you save on qulipta®. When you stay at a vrbo you always get the whole home not part of it but the whole upstairs the whole downstairs the whole fridge and the whole Secret Nap Room because is it really a Vacation Home if you have to share a house with a host . Only with vrbo this valentines day, give the gift of shine. At zales, the diamond store. I screwed up. Mhm. I got us tmobile home internet. Now Cell Phone Users have priority over us. And your marriage survived that . You can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. Oh i cant hear you. Youre froze ladies, please you put it on Airplane Mode when you pass our house. I was trying to work. Were workin it too. Yeah work it girl woo i want to hear you say it out loud. Well, i could switch us to xfinity. Those smiles. Thats why i do what i do. That and the paycheck. Very angry response from china today after the u. S. Shot down its Surveillance Balloon off the host of South Carolina. Lets gogo straight to cnns mark stuart, joining us from hong kong. Tell our viewers what china had to say about this. Indeed, wolf. This response from china is very strong. It is sharp. It is unforgiving. And its coming very early on a sunday morning here in asia. I want to take out some of the key phrases in its statement that i think give a pretty good narrative as to where beijing stands. First under such circumstances, the u. S. Insists on using force, obviously over reacting and seriously violating international practice. The statement goes on to say, china will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant companies, while reserving the right to make further necessary reactions. And wolf, i think its this last phrase, further necessary reactions, which is Getting International attention and attention an cross asia. Exactly what that means is not clear. We could get some clarity as early as monday afternoon, early monday morning in the u. S. When Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a regular briefing, and indeed, there was often a question on and answer period, wolf, where perhaps this new narrative will be discussed. As you know, mark, all this is unfolding as the u. S. Secretary of state Antony Blinken was supposed to be in china right now for critical meetings, but he postponed that trip. How does all that impact whats going on right now, the postponement of the visit . Well, its interesting, because i was talking to an analyst about this days ago, about what were the expectations for this meeting . And one point that was brought up was to reestablish a diplomatic relationship that has been so frayed in recent years. The goal would be to establish a situation where if something just like this happened, both sides would be able to quickly pick up the phone and talk to their diplomatic counterpart. Dont want to make any kind of assumptions, but that likely did not happen here and that was going to be the sole purpose of this meeting. And then obviously, with this new escalation, to have a Secretary Of State shaking happened or having a photo op with someone from a nation where there is a dispute, where there is a Balloon Flying in question, that would have provided perhaps some sketchy optics. So where this relationship goes, thats a big question im sure the States Department is going to be getting. Yeah. And the states clearly are enormous in terms of u. S. china relationship. Mark stuart in hong kong with us. Thank you very, very much. I want to bring in cnn political analyst david sanger, white house and Security Correspondent for the new york times. David, thank you so much for joining us. China says they are, quote, reserving the right, and im quoting now, to make further necessary reaction. Relations between washington and beijing were already pretty much strained. So where do the two sides go from here . Shoes the Secretary Of State, Antony Blinken, have gone ahead with this trip and meet with the chinese leadership . Wolf, thanks for having me on. My own view is that secretary blinken couldnt make this trip until they really understood what this was all about. In other words, what kind of information was being collected by the balloon. On the one hand, you have to put this in perspective. Theres all kinds of chinese surveillance that goes on in the United States, much of which is more severe than this. Right . For example, the chinese at various moments have stolen the data of 22 million americans who got Security Clearances from the office of Management Office of Public Information from the u. S. They have used at moments things like tiktok and other apps to go steal the data of private citizens. Theyve gone into the databases of various hotel and healthcare groups. So so many of those are more severe than what you could get from the balloon, but the balloon was such a public event. People could see this and track it going across the country that the administration had to go respond. And ultimately, they had to take it down, i think, just to understand what it was the chinese were doing. And trying to recover the debris to see what was inside that balloon. In light of all of this, david, do you think china will be surprised by the u. S. Outrage . And there clearly is a lot of outrage and anger over this incursion by china. You know, i think that there will be a lot of public outrage, and im sure the chinese will work up a fair bit of outrage in china about the fact that it was shot down. Lets face it, if we had a balloon going over mainland china, they would have shot it down. So you know, i dont think they can take that argument too far. I have my doubts about whether president xi jinping knew about this just before mr. Blinken was coming. Since his meeting in bally with President Biden, hes been on a drive to improve relations with the u. S. , or at least take down the temperature. He would have known that this would not have contributed to that, so it raises a question on, was it an accident or did someone in china just not get the memo and let this thing go anyway . Because of course, the u. S. Would obviously know if this huge balloon was flying over the United States. The chinese had to understand that. Its not the most tell they operation you and i have ever seen. Right. Not tell they at all. Its blatant and brutal. How do you think these two super powers, david, will have a way to rebuild this relationship . Theres so much at stake, especially with all the tension over taiwan as well. Well, on the one hand, we have rebuilt the relationship before after big incidents. Think about the downing of the p3 that crashed that happened between a chinese and an american intelligence aircraft in it the early days of the bush administration. It took a while to get back the crew and it took longer to get back remnants of the airplane. They came back in that very small box. We managed, after that, to put a relationship back together. But this is a different time. At that moment, china was not trying to show its dominance of the region. It wasnt the kind of military and technological competitor with the u. S. That it is today. The u. S. Was not trying to choke off Technology Going to china, as President Biden has done quite effectively just last week. We didnt have this kind of military presence, rebuilding in the pacific that President Biden has put together. I think the issues going ahead are going to be a lot more complex than the balloon. The balloon was just the most public part of it. It was very public indeed. As i mentioned earlier, david, hanging over all of this is clearly the rising tension right now about the fate of taiwan. Does this make that situation even harder for the two sides to resolve . You know, i think what it does, wolf, is it shows you how difficult it would be to deescalate a taiwan crisis if china moved again the way it did last summer when nancy pelosi visited and the way it undoubtedly will move to choke off part of access to taiwan waterways if you see the new speaker of the house go visit, as he has said that he will be doing. So i think what it tells you is that even things that should be diffused pretty quickly, were having a hard time communicating that. I mean, imagine in the past couple of days, wolf, a different scenario in which china said, this was an accident. It never should have gone over there. Let us help you bring this down. Right . So that we can end this thing peaceful i and everybody can understand that. That did not happen. And thats really what should have happened if youd had much communication going on between china and the United States. I suspect the chinese do not want the United States to know what was inside that balloon, what kind of equipment. David sanger, thank you very much. Still ahead, whats left of the china spy balloon and whats left is now being taken to the fbis lab in quantico, virginia. Well discuss what that investigation will look like. Thats next. Stay with us. This is a Special Edition of the Situation Room. So thank you. We hope you like your work. technically when enamel is gone, you cannot get it back. But there are ways you can repair it. Im excited about pronamel repair because it penetrates deep into the tooth to help actively repair acidweakened enamel. I recommend pronamel repair to my patients. Mass general brigham when you need some of the brightest minds in medicine. 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When it comes to payday, you can with wells fargo. coworker 4 what are you doing this weekend . Weve learned that wreckage recovered from the chinese spy balloon downed by u. S. Fighter jets today will be taken to an fbi lab in quantico, virginia, for analysis. A Senior Defense official tells cnn the fbi will work with the u. S. Defense department and with the u. S. Counter intelligence authorities. Joining us now, cnn security consultant, josh, a former fbi supervisory special agent. Also joining us, cnn National Security analyst terry cordaro. Josh, let me start with you. What do you think specifically when the debris reaches quantico, what will investigators be looking for . Wolf, this will be the Damage Assessments phase. Basically trying to determine what threat to u. S. National security was there from this intelligence Collection Platform in and to the extent that the intelligence apparatus of this balloon actually survived, the fbi would be trying to look at that to determine what were its capabilities . Was this the Realtime Collection that weve heard about is this was it stored collection . A lot of questions there, obviously. I can tell you, having worked in the fbi, a lot of people, when you think about the Fbi Laboratory, you think about dna analysis, firearms analysis. Theres actually an entire division called the Operational Technology division that is response for looking at devices. Creating devices. When i was an fbi agent and we had a problem set, a place we wanted to collect information from, we would go to these tech wizards and say create us a device that can get us to where we need to go on the other side of that equation, you know, working overseas, whenever we would capture a device in an embassy, for example, we would take it to this team and say, exploit this. Tell us what this is. So it makes sense to me that this is a team that is doing that analysis. Finally, its worth pointing out that this will be a multi agency effort. This wont just be the fbi, but it makes sense to me why the fbi would be leading this in their location of theres also, wolf, a public accountability aspect of this. This is obviously a very Public Events that weve seen. Weve already heard lawmakers calling for accountability, calling for answers, so you know, we dont often see the cia, nsa, other Intelligence Agencies out there. This will likely be the fbi, if there is some type of public report to come about. But this certainly makes sense to me that this would be the team where this analysis would be done. Good point. Terry, this seems like an all hands on deck operation, this investigation thats about to unfold, the fbi, the cia, the Defense Department, and more that we dont even know about. What does that say to you, what a big deal this is emerging . One of the interesting things about this whole event is that the u. S. And china are countries that conduct intelligence activities against each other, and china is a really aggressive perpetrator of intelligence activities against the United States. This particular event happens to be out in the open. Usually these are things that all happen Behind The Scenes. So when it comes to intelligence activities, these are all of the components that normally would be engaged, the Intelligence Community, the fbi, the Defense Department, particularly cyber come, which normally would be involved in activities that china is doing in terms of cyberspace. These are the agencies that normally would be part of the intelligence back and forth that goes on. In this case, we have these physical devices that now are going to have to be analyze analyzed. Theyre going to take a close look at all of that. Clearly the chinese are reacting very angrily to the way the u. S. Took down this balloon earlier today. Talk a little bit about that. How unusual is this type of reaction coming from china right now . Well, i think what were seeing, wolf, is public posturing. It is no secret that the chinese have been very aggressive in intelligence collection against the United States, both in looking at government targets, as david sanger mentioned earlier. There was the whole issue of the Chinese Government stealing thousands of records from the u. S. Government, Background Investigation records from u. S. Government employees, which was a Treasure Trove for the chinese intelligence services, but also looking at Intellectual Property from Defense Secrets as well. And so for them to come out and say this is violating International Norms for the u. S. To take this aggressive action, i think thats a bit of posturing. I dont think anyone watching this, to include the Chinese Government, would have equals or concern with this notion, and that is if there were to happen inside a chinese territory, the chinese lost would have boulevard this thing out of the sky very quickly. And i would submit that based on their human rights record, there probably would not have an as circumspect as the u. S. Government was in ensuring there werent any potential casualties on the ground. Thats them coming out saying this was unnecessary, that the u. S. Government overreacted, but certainly if the tables were turned and the u. S. Government was flying some type of device like this over chinese territory which, by the way, would not be surprising to see that happen as well, i would imagine that they would take even more aggressive steps than the Biden Administration did. Theres no doubt if the u. S. Had flown a huge balloon like this over china, the chinese would have downed it right away. They would have i can at that he know anything that is in a countrys sovereign airspace. They are going to take action against that. I think my reaction to what the chinese are saying is that really, when we look at how the United States government has reacted to prior chinese intelligence activities, really its been one of under reaction. As josh was describing, the Cyber Attacks, just pervasive Cyber Attacks year after year, theft of u. S. Government records, stealing Intellectual Property from defense contractors, all of that, weve used criminal prosecution as a tool and weve used some diplomatic back and forth. There really hasnt been any other u. S. Security reaction. We now have a new committee actually that was formed in congress that is looking at the china threat in particular, so lawmakers have been taking the threat posed by china more seriously, but because this was in the public, it was something that americans could see with their own eyes as it was traversing over the country, it just has a different reaction. Social media, you can see this balloon going over montana, then continuing over kansas and eventually heading towards South Carolina just off the coast of myrtle beach. Thats where it went down. Carrie, thank you very much. Josh, thanks to you as well. Well have much more on the shoot down of this chinese spy balloon. Thats coming up in a moment. First, shelter in place orders for people in Northeastern Ohio right now after a train derailed and sparked a massive fire. Stand by for the latest. This is a Special Edition of the Situation Room. Why are these so bad . If i wouldve used kayak to book our car, we could have saved on our trip instead of during our tripip. Ughh kayak. K. Search one and done. The first time you connected your website and your store was also the first time you realized. We can do anything. Cheeseke cookies . [togethe the chookie manage all your sales from one place with a partner that always puts you first. Godaddy. Tools and support for every Small Business fst. Okay everyone, our mission is complete balanced nutrition. Together we support immune function. Supply fuel for immune cells and sustain tissue health. Ensure with twentyfive vitamins and minerals, and ensure complete with thirty grams of protein. Im managing my high blood pressure, but im still a target for Chronic Kidney Disease. 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Farxiga we all have a purpose in life a why. maybe its perfecting that special place that you want to keep in the family. Or passing down the family business. Or giving back to the places that inspire you. No matter your purpose, at pnc private bank, we will work with you every step of the way to help you achieve it. So let us focus on the how. Just tell us whats your why . Well have much more on the downed chinese spy balloon thats coming up just ahead. But first right now a massive fire is burning near the ohiopennsylvania border following a Train Derailment that happened nearly 24 hours ago. Evacuation and shelter in place orders are in effect for nearby residents in northeast ohio. No injuries have been reported, but the train was hauling some 20 cars with Hazardous Materials according to an ntsb official. But environmental Authorities Say theyve not detected any harmful releases at least not yet, and they say theyre no longer concerned about air quality. The cause of this huge derailment is unclear. Lets go to memphis right now where the Police Department is firing another officer after the brutal killing of tyre nichols. The officer is the sixth sixth fired by the department. An internal probe determined he violated several department policies. Cnns Naddia Romero has more. Reporter the mayor of memphis announcing there will be a federal investigation by at least two agencies including the Department Of Justice to look into the citys Police Department. And this is something that the family of tyre nichols and local activists have been asking for, an independent investigation. The mayor announcing just on friday that that will now happen. Lets get you uptodate on the Police Officer situation, those officers who were on scene. We now have an additional, a sixth Police Officer who has been fired. This officer hemphill, former officer now was one of the first to arrive on scene, tried to tase tyre nickels we see in had video and Something Like i hope they stop him. And a long list of policy violations, violations of the memphis city Police Departments policies including personal conduct, truthfulness,clinous issues here. And thuflness is an important one because we know the original police statements do not match what we saw in the video, and that has come into question time and time again. We did hear from the attorney representing former officer hemphill who says hell cooperate with all the investigations into the death of tyre nichols. I want you to take a look at the five other Police Officers who have already been fired and indicted. Theyve been charged several charges here including a Murder Charge and Assault Charge with many others in connection with tyre nichols death. And now we have two emts have been suspended. The allegation they waited 19 minutes before administering basic care to tyre nichols and we know he died just days later. I want you to hear from his grandmother, the grandmother of tyre nichols and her message to the Police Officers who were involved. My baby was a skateboarder. He worked at fedex. He had the best mother and stepfather in the world. Why would you want to do that to him . Now, the District Attorneys Office says there could be more charges coming. We also know that there is some 20 hours of Video Footage that could be released as well. Nadia romero, cnn, atlanta. Nadia, thank you very much. Meanwhile parts of North Eastern the North Eastern United States finally warming up at least slightly after record breaking freezing temperatures. The coldest in decades in some areas here in the United States. Less than a Million People now under wind chill advisories. Thats down from as many as 20 million earlier today. The once in a Generation Cold producing some stunning images. This video out of vermont shows a miniature whirlwind known as a steam devil forming over Lake Champlain yesterday. And new hampshire, the wind chill there likely setting a new national record, an incredible get this minus minus 108 degrees fahrenheit. And big news were covering in the for lebron james, but he still finished just a bit short of a huge record. Lakers star lebron james finished with 27 points in tonights game against the pelicans, and that leaves the 38yearold just 36 points away from breaking the nba alltime scoring record. The record will remain in the hands of the legend Kareem Abduljabbar for a couple more days at least. The next chance for james to break the record is tuesday night against the Oklahoma City thunder. Well watch. Still ahead more on tonights top story, the u. S. Shoot down of a chinese spy balloon and the ongoing efforts to recover whats left of it for analysis. 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That comes as were getting one of the best looks yet of the shoot down of the balloon. U. S. Fighter jets fired a single missile to crash the Surveillance Craft this afternoon. Right now military crews are scrambling to try to recover as much of the wreckage as possible. Most of it sits in 47 feet of water. Also new tonight, china is delivering a very angry response to what the United States did today. Lets get the latest and go to it pentagon first. Our correspondent Orin Leiberman is joining us right now. Orin, walk us through whats next. Reporter the Recovery Effort is already under way. When this operation was in the Planning Part of what was in the ground and on the water were navy and coast guard vessels ready to jump in and essentially begin the Recovery Effort. And there are two parts to this. The first is already under way with a Security Perimeter established around essentially the debris from this balloon thats floating on the water. And it is quite spread out. A Senior Defense official said earlier today its spread out over 7 miles of water, so that in and of itself will take some effort. Some has sunken in 40 feet of water. For that theyll need a Salvage Vessel in the next couple of days and going under water with unmanned vessels, with navy divers to bring that up. All this has the potential to obtain incredible intelligence and technology from the chinese. And thats why this is such an important operation and such a delicate operation. This dramatic video of It Missile Taking down the balloon, it then fell this payload thats about three school buses long from 60,000 feet high, so nearly 12 miles up in the sky, impacted the water where almost certainly would have had a tremendous force there. So now its a question of trying to find everything, trying to bring it up and the much more difficult work of going through it and seeing what intelligence can be gleaned from it, wolf. Yeah, very important development, indeed. Oren leiberman at the pentagon. What are you hearing tonight . Reporter President Biden made clear today he ordered his Military Leaders to shoot down this plane on wednesday saying he wanted that shot down as soon as possible. Of course there were all those deliberations about shooting down this balloon excuse me, i said plane earlier but all those deliberations in what the president had been advised was that shooting it down over the ground would possibly pose a threat to american lives. That is why they waited until it transited out over to water off of the east coast. Now, President Biden was on Air Force One as this operation was under way, and heres what he had to tell reporters shortly after he landed in maryland. On wednesday when i was briefed on the balloon i ordered the pentagon to shoot it down on wednesday as soon as possible and decided without doing damage to anyone on the ground and decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water within a 12 mile limit. They successfully took it down, and i want to compliment our aviators who did it, and well have more to report on this a little later. Thank you. Whats your message to china . You were saying the recommendation was from your national i told them to shoot it down. On wednesday. On wednesday. They said to me lets wait until the safest place to do it. So the president there laying out some of the considerations that were given to shooting down this device, but this comes as the president has faced quite a bit of criticism from republicans for not taking action and trying to shoot it down sooner. Of course tonight here at the white house officials have been arguing that the way that the president dealt with this, waiting until it was out over sea was, quote, the responsible action to take. They wanted to ensure that they were minimizing any threat to american lives. Now, of course this is all going to be a very difficult diplomatic foray that the white house now has to deal with china as this incident as certainly raised tensionwise the country. Arlette saenz over at the white house for us, thank you very much. Lets discuss now with former republican congressman adam kinzinger. Thanks for joining us. Now that this balloon is down what do you hope u. S. Intelligence will learn once its analyzed . Well, i think it sounds like they were able to learn a lot even while this was transiting. It sounds like they were able to block either some or all the data collection, which i think can, you know, go into feeding why they delayed shooting it down because they saw what could be a huge National Security risk at that moment. But the hope is youre going to have a lot of wreckage obviously. Youre not going to be able to take any of this off and plug it into a thumb drive and see whats on it, but through this youll be able to see various technology, what sensors were on that, is that a camera . Is that something that can sniff out Radioactive Material . Can it collect microwaves, Radio Communication . Is this advanced technology, something we knew they had or whatever. So seems like at least initial reports china is actually the losing country in term of the Dita Exchange here. Yeah, because the u. S. Will learn a lot from analyzing what was inside that balloon and what it was capable of actually doing. Adam, once the u. S. Intelligence Community Gathers all the information on this balloon, i ask this to you as a former member of congress, how much do you think the Intelligence Community, the fbi should actually share with congress . Well, i think they should share some of the top lines. I dont think they need to go into things like what was the technology. You can kind of be a little vague about that, and theres a lot of that information you simply dont want to get out. And so i think thats going to be important. Congress has an Oversight Role here. Congress has a lot of questions. What i think, wolf, is pretty sad. And i was a big advocate for shooting this thing down because at the time im like maybe theyd be able to hinder something to make that decision to wait. The number of the members of congress you have a right to criticism the president in this, and frankly thats their job to do it if they think he made the wrong decision. But the number of people i saw tweeting and making statements basically saying this is proof the worlds laughing at us, the u. S. Military is the worst military in the world, basically to paraphrase that to me is extremely disappointing. That at a moment of somewhat crisis here the Knee Jerk Reaction of some of my colleagues was to see this as an opportunity to go after President Biden politically. Disagree with him all you want, but when you start speaking down to the u. S. Military, ive got to tell you, were still the Best In The World by far. Yeah, we certainly are. Do you agree, congressman, with some republican lawmakers who say the balloon should have been shot down as soon as it first appeared over the United States as it was going over montana, for example, a pretty sparsely populated area, should it have been shot down then . So, look, if we hadnt been able to block the signals, if basically they were pulling important National Security stuff from that, absolutely we should have shot it down. And im going to tell you if this happens again, you know, im somewhat certain, i guess, i would not be surprised if we shoot it down a lot earlier. It is anytime you flyover a sparsely populated state, you realize theres not a lot of people out there, its got a lot of land. And so but my guess is the pentagon knew that they were able to at least mitigate some some of the damage being done here, and at that point you can make the decision to shoot it down over the water, and probably the water is a better place for preserving some of those parts. Of course, its still going to hit with impact, its going to shatter but my guess is it may help preserve it versus just laying there on the ground. We shall see. What concerns you the most about this brazen effort by china to send this huge, huge balloon over the continental United States . Well, it looks like its a country thats not a super power thats trying to play super power. And so the concern about it i dont think this incident is going to lead to, you know, u. S. And china fighting each other. But it obviously shows that, look, china is not this, you know, undefeatable country that i think people thought russia was, for instance, even, but it shows they can make bad calculations. They can assume were going to do one thing when we may do another. Thats the concern is when we deal with this kind of delicate dance in asia right now, that somebody, namely china epithis case, is going to underpredict what were going to do and we may find ourselves then in an exchange of fire. I wonder if you are worried about chinese reaction to what has happened today. Do you see reprisals from beijing, diplomatic or otherwise for that matter . We have every right to shoot this thing down. I think in his quiet falling asleep thoughts president xi knows we had every right to shoot this thing down. I dont think this will escalate. Theyll make some words out there and everything else, but i think the message is clear here, and i think our response should be do it again, well shoot it down again. And definitely you will lose in this exchange. Do you think the Secretary Of State Antony Blinken made the right decision postponing his trip . He was supposed to be in china right away. Yeah, i certainly think so. This is a this is a brazen violation of u. S. Sovereignty. And i think its important to note because im still seeing people say, well, whats the difference between this and the satellite, massive differences between what a balloon can get and a satellite can get, can loiter, has different sensors, can pull up different information. It was absolutely the right thing to do. I dont think he should be in a hurry to reschedule it though we have to keep up some version of talk. Yeah, you cant have anything like this happen and let it go without being at least concerned. So where do you think u. S. Chinese relations go from here . Look, were in a bad spot. Its very clear china has earlier this idea the idea they can be a super power. Theyre not capable of that right now whether it comes to their economy, their military, command structure. I think its going to be a strained relationship and neither side want to go to war. So i dont predict that happening necessarily anytime soon. But no doubt this has put a strain on it. Adam kinzinger, thanks as usual for joining us. Appreciate it very much. Right now navy and coast guard ships are securing the area where this chinese spy balloon went down, so what will happen when divers try to reach this destroyed balloon . And that should happen fairly soon. We have details. Thats coming up next. Also ahead the faa and the u. S. Military Work Together to close airspace over the carolina coast earlier this afternoon on very, very short notice. Stay with us. This is a Special Edition of the Situation Room. Thisis valentines day, give the gift of shine. At zales, the diamond store. This week is your chance to try any Subway Footlong for free. Like the subway series menu. Just buy any footlong in the app, and get one free. Free monsters, free bosses, any footlong for free this guy loves a great offer. So lets see some hustle hey dad, im almost out. I got you. Any questions, chris . All good, thanks maura healthier is managing all your familys prescriptions in one app. Think hes posting about all that ancient roman coinage . No. Hes making realtime money moves with merrill. So no matter what the markets doing, hes ready. And thats. How you collect coins. Your money never stops working for you with merrill, a Bank Of America company. 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[woo hoo ] ensure max protein, with 30 grams of protein, one gram of sugar and nutrients for immune health. U. S. Navy divers will assist as needed in recovering the chinese Surveillance Balloon from the Atlantic Ocean after u. S. Fighter jets shot it down earlier today. There are also unmanned vessels that can help retrieve it and bring it up to the recovery ship. A senior u. S. Military official says the debris is primarily in 47 feet of water off the coast of South Carolina. Cnns tom foreman is joining us. Hes over at the magic wall for us. So, tom, walk us through where this balloon went down and how the Recovery Efforts may actually play out. Well, this is part theyre really interested in, wolf, that central part of the payload what looked like solar arrays on either side. When this thing was taken down, you could clearly see that part, the part theyre interested in, dropping away in what seems to be intact. Now, from the altitude where it was, more than 60,000 feet, we dont know the mass. But if the mas was that of a car or a couple of cars, which a balloon like this could easily carry, it could have gone into the water at 500 550 mile an our, maybe more. Thats just an estimate based on what we do know. That means that when it hit somewhere here around myrtle beach that it was like running into a concrete wall. Its going to be a tremendous impact when it hits, deforming, breaking things, throwing things aside. It would not stay the way it was falling through the air. What does that mean to the recovery . That means even though its in 47 feet of water, which is tremendous, and even though it got good weather for the next few days, which is another good break. Theyre going to have to go down first and do a basic assessment of what condition its in, where all the pieces are. Lets find out what the bottom is here. Is all this embedded where they have to dig it up, and slowly they have to come up with a plan. What is most important to bring up, what do they most have to keep the way it is so they can see it in relation to other things . And then how will they do it . This is very delicate work. It takes tile. They think this will be a fairly fast operation, not something that would go on for weeks, but it will still take time to bring it all up safely and preserve the evidence. Look at this as if its an under water crime scene, wolf. Thats how they have to treat it if they want to get all the evidence they think they can find. They want to get all the evidence and get it quickly and learn what the chinese were up to. Thank you very much. Joining us now cnn Military Analyst of the u. S. Air force colonel cedric leyten. Amazing video as fighter jets shot down with a single missile this spy balloon. Watch this. They just shot it. You see the smoke coming from it . All right, colonel, talk to me about the kind of train these pilots undergo to make such a targeted shot deflating the balloon, but apparently leaving its payload, what was inside the balloon, untouched. Yeah, its Pretty Amazing when you watch this video, wolf. So the training these pilots undergo is really significant. They go for about a year and a half of whats called undergraduate Pilot Training when they first come into the air force and first get their commissions. And after that they specialize in their particular air frames. Most of the pilots that are flying the f22 have flown another airplane before that. So they would have had experience with another type of airplane, but the types of skills they acquire in these kinds of situations are then honed in places like an Air Force Base in nevada where they have the Fighter Weapons school. So these kind of tactics are really essential not only to war fighting but to really precise operations like this. And the targeting piece of this from the pilot to the weapon, the sideliner missile in this case, to the actual target, that really speaks to the precision that was very evident in this cases and speaks to the precision of the u. S. Weapons systems available to us. Im a former Pentagon Correspondent and ive covered it for a long time. I dont remember when u. S. Fighter jets were shooting down balloons. Do you . Yeah, thats a very rare occurrence. You can go back to world war i and probably world war ii to find a few instances like this in air power. But this is something in the modern age you never expect to see this. But what it really tells us is that the adversaries we have can use a variety of weapons. Some of those weapons are unexpected weapons. Some of them are, you know, oldfashioned in a sense like these balloons are. But these Weapon Systems or these intelligence platforms, they can be used in many, many ways and we have to really understand what the enemy is or the adversary is up to and adapt our tactics and techniques through whatever platform they might be using. A senior u. S. Defense official says the balloon was s assessed as having limited value from an intelligence collection perspective, colonel. So what are your guesses as to what its actual purpose was . Why did china launch this huge balloon across the continental United States . So theres several possibilities. I used to work collection management operations, and what that means is you pick what the type of Collection Asset that you need in order to go after a particular intelligence target. So what may have happened is that the chinese may have an outage, may have felt they needed a gap filler in order to cover the particularly Intelligence Requirement they had for their forces. So what could happen is they could put balloons in place of satellites to do this. And the types of intelligence that they would be using, wolf, would include imagery intelligence, which is kind of hard to do in some cases from a platform like balloon, but also signals intelligence. And they would be able to collect data in various frequency spectra like uhf, vhf, cellphone communications. Those are the kind of things that would be important from a military perspective, and they could also be sampling the environment, the signals environment and the terrain. So there are a lot of Different Things that could be a part of their menu, if you will, of things that they were interested in. And a balloon was perhaps one way in which they could find out what theyre missing, find out what other things they need to augment in terms of other intelligence collection capabilities. And those areas were the ones they needed to be filled to cover, and in essence it was also a provocation. Chinas Foreign Ministry has expressed outrage towards the United States for shooting down this balloon. But if the u. S. Launched a huge balloon like this over china i wonder if you agree with me china would have shot is down right away. Oh, yeah, in a heartbeat, wolf. They would have done that. Any other country, you know, pick north korea, pick, you know, any country in asia, any country in europe if they had the capability to shoot it down, they would shoot it down. And we have to keep in mind that there are countries, however, that do not have the capability to shoot these platforms down, the countries in Latin America may find it difficult to take down the balloon that is over their airspace right now. So that is something that well have to keep in mind as this develops and the chinese perhaps use this one this system once again. Colonel cedric leighton, as usual thanks for joining us. Two experts standing by to join me, they will explain. Stay us. 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Cnns Josh Campbell is a former fbi supervisory special agent. First of all, what will investigators be looking for specifically . Wolf, this is whats called the Damage Assessment phase, basically trying to determine was there a threat to u. S. National security that was posed by this intelligence Collection Platform. And the fbi, you know, theres no Better Agency out there that can look at and recreate a device assuming that it actually survived that shoot down. So theyll be looking at that. When a lot of people think about the fbi they think about dna analysis, forensic analysis, firearm analysis. Theres actually an entire division at the Fbi Laboratory in quantico. These are the tech wizards that would create those devices. When we were overseas we would capture a particular device and take it to this team for exploitation. It makes sense to me this would be the team looking at what this was and stands up to scrutiny. The chinese have said this was a meteorological assessment platform. Well see if that ends up being the case. The fbi theyre leading this and this will be a multiagency effort. I think thats because the Intelligence Community almost certainly understands unlike a lot of intelligence operations this a very public incident. Weve all seen this for ourselves in these images. Weve heard calls from lawmakers for accountability. So you dont often see the cia and nsa often out there publicly. It makes sense to me why the fbi might take on that role assuming theres some type of public report. It makes sense to me this would be the entity where that analysis and scrutiny would take place. Clearly the debris will go to quantico to the fbi labs there. Fbi labs there are more sophisticated shall we say than the labs that might be at Langley Air Force base also in virginia. Thats right. You think about the air force piece and their job was to finish this target. It looks like for all intents and purposes it was to blow this out of the sky. There was a lot of calls for why didnt the Biden Administration do this earlier. Obviously that could have caused great risk to people who were on the ground. Im no balloon expert. There have been a lot of Balloon Experts that have surfaced newly minted in the last few days, but i can tell you all of us can know for ourselves something falling out of the sky could pose a threat to people on the ground. Now well wait for the u. S. Navy, the coast guard to actually recover that device and as you mentioned that moves to the investigative phase, the Analysis Phase to try to determine what this thing was. We dont know yet. We saw the video of this being shot down. We dont know if the actual intelligence apparatus attached to this balloon will survive not only the shoot down but also falling to the water. But assuming it did, if investigators are able to look at that and recreate that, that could then answer a lot of important questions. Not only what this device was, but assuming this was something sophisticated in nature perhaps that could be an intelligence gold mine for the u. S. Intelligence community as well about the Chinese Governments tactics and capabilities. There will be a calculus, wolf, about what actually the fbi or the Intelligence Community divulges. They will have to make that calculus, if this was something so sensitive in nature they dont want to lay all their cards out. But well have to wait and see what they came up with. I think well hear something from them about what they find. They cant just go Radio Silence with all this public scrutiny and interest, but well wait to squewhat these analysts at quantico come up with. Josh campbell, thank you very much. Joining us now is cnn National Security analyst sean turner. Before this balloon was shot down the military and faa worked together to close the airspace over the coast. What do you make they were able to coordinate so much of this . Yeah, well, wolf, this was absolutely critical in term of the coordination. As josh said in the last segment when the analysis was done as to the best time to shoot this balloon down, the fbi, the Intelligence Community, the Department Of Defense would have looked at a number of key factors. Those factors have everything to do with the threat to civilians on the ground, but they also would have taken a hard look at the degree to which they could recover this balloon and make absolutely sure they could do some analysis here to fully understand what the chinese were trying to do. Wolf, its actually not that unusual for agencies like the faa and others to work closely with the Intelligence Community and with the Department Of Defense in situations like this. We dont get to exercise those kinds of relationships very often. But in this case at least in this case it looks like that coordination worked quite well and the right division was made to shoot this balloon down while it was over water. Yeah, to prevent damage to individuals or properties in the United States. Right now salvage crews are working to gather the debris in the ocean off the coast of South Carolina. All that debris will go a lab for multiple Intelligence Agencies to analyze. What are they going to be looking for, shawn, or hoping not to find specifically . Wolf, its important first youll realize in terms of what theyre looking for the Intelligence Community started looking for information about what this balloon was doing even before it was shot down. You know, theres been a lot of talk about the the importance of shooting this balloon down quickly. But when that came to the president one of the first things the Intelligence Community would have been talking about is whether or not there was an opportunity to collect intelligence and better understand Chinese Trade Craft even before this was shot down. When the decision was made to shoot this balloon down theyll be taking a hard look at the various components to determine what china was trying to collect. Theyll be looking to see whether or not there was any new technology we were not previously aware of. Theyll also be taking a hard look at the Control Mechanism for this balloon. Its unclear to us at this point why and how this balloon ended up over u. S. Airspace. Theyll want to know whether or not this was something that sort of went errant and they lost control of it or whether this was deliberate. And then to the degree that they can understand the devices that are there, that will help us understand how other devices that china is using may work. So, you know, this could potentially be a treasuretrove of information, wolf. But as josh said in the last segment, we simply wont know until that analysis is done. All right. China says the United States was, quote, overreacting by shooting down this balloon and seriously this is china seriously violating international practice. Does that kind of response from china concern you . It does, wolf. I mean, look, the chinese had to Say Something to try to save face here. They got caught spying on the United States, and it still took some time to come up with a story but theyve come up with a story and decided to go on the offensive here. But make no mistake and this is a situation in which even as diplomatic relations with china were getting to a point where conversations were happening again, china made a terrible miscalculation here. And this will have a Significant Impact on diplomatic relations going forward. No one buys the story, and i think the chinese know that. But theyre doing what Nation States do when they get caught spying, going on the offensive. But this certainly is not going to sit well in our diplomatic channels, and i think this is going to change the nature of those discussions that the United States is planning to have with china in the future. Because china as you know is Still Standing very firmly with its claim this was just a Research Balloon studying the weather. If the Intelligence Community completes its investigation and confirms something nefarious, which i assume they will, what does that mean moving forward as far as tensions between the United States and china . Yeah, well, its very straightforward, wolf. If this is determined to be a spy balloon and its almost certain it will be determined to be some sort of apparatus to spy on the United States, the tensions between the United States which have already been in recent months and years at a fever pitch are going to to rise. It is going to get more tense. I think Behind The Scenes even as this balloon has been shot out of the sky and collecting debris Behind The Scenes, the State Department is working to talk to the chinese to fully understand outside of The Public Eye what happened here. And so while we may see those Tensions Overflowing in The Public Eye, its important for people to know Behind The Scenes theyll still try to Work Together and try to figure, you know, a way to get diplomatic relations back on track. But its going to be challenging, wolf. This does not help that relationship at all. And i think at some point the chinese are going to have to step forward and are going to have to acknowledge the reality of this situation. And the reality is they got caught trying to spy on the United States. Shawn turner, thank you very, very much for that analysis. Well have more on chinas statement about the balloon coming up. Well have a live report from hong kong. Stay with us. This is a Special Edition of the Situation Room. How many rooms are in there . Should we go check it out . Yeah. We get to stay here all weekend when you stay at a vrbo. Call doing the door code . The host doesnt stay with you. It looks exactly likehe picture. Because without ivacy in your Vacation Home. Its a full log cabin guys. It isnt really a vacation. We can snuggle up by the fire. Is it . Wow, oh my [birds chirping] we know you care. [music plays] but if this is all too real for you and your loved ones. Make the call. Because we care too. Home instead. To us, its personal. Think hes posting about all that ancient roman coinage . No. Hes making realtime money moves with merrill. So no matter what the markets doing, hes ready. And thats. How you collect coins. Your money never stops working for you with merrill, a Bank Of America company. China tonight not pleased after the United States shot down its Surveillance Balloon off the coast of South Carolina. Cnns mark stewart is joining us live from hong kong right now. So what is china saying, mark . Wolf, the tone of this response has been changing over the last 24, 48 hours. Let me just back up real briefly to friday when this began to unravel. China was almost apologetic using words such as regret, which is very rare to hear from the Chinese Government. But now the response were getting to the shoot down of the suspected spy balloon, it is firm, it is forceful and very unforgiving. Let me read you just a portion of this paragraph long statement. China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protest against the u. S. Use of force to attack civilian unmanned aircraft. The chinese side has repeatedly informed the u. S. Side after verification that the airship is for suvilian use and entered the u. S. Using Force Majeure meaning complete circumstance. It was simply an accident. It goes onto say it will take necessary actions. So this is now moving from a diplomatic tone to one that is much more aggressive. And the backdrop of this also cant be ignored. In just about a week ago we were planning for what may have been the first visit of a Secretary State to china in six years. Antony blinken was planning on this visit to talk about diplomacy and talk about some of the big issues where perhaps there would be some common ground. But now we are in a much different situation, and the u. S. Is going to be very anxious to see what more china says in the next 24 hour. I think i mentioned to you last hour, wolf, the government typically has a briefing in the afternoons. Itll be monday afternoon when itll be the quickest well hear from them. So perhaps well get a better idea at least on the public stage what the Chinese Government is thinking. We shall find out. Thank you very, very much. Lets get right to democratic congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi right now. Hes the Ranking Member on the new House Select Committee on china. Whats your reaction to the downing of this chinese spy balloon . I think President Biden did exactly what he needed to do, which is once the risk of any Property Damage or damage to human lives was out of the way, he took it down over the ocean. And now we get to salvage it and determine exactly whether it was a Weather Balloon or whether it was a Surveillance Balloon, which we all suspect and believe to be the case at this point. Youre the ranking democratic member of this new China Select Committee in the house of representative. What will your committee do about this flight over the United States by this huge chinese balloon . Well, i think that it just reminds us of the of the threats posed by the Chinese Communist party, and thats it reason for the formation of the committee. You know, basically we know that theyre military, technological, National Security threats. And of course this particular balloon, you know, the balloon reminded us that these threats exist, that the Chinese Communist party is aggressive, and that they are, unfortunately, committing surveillance and violations of our own National Sovereignty not to mention violations of the National Sovereignty of so many of their neighbors including taiwan and many others. The white house is making the case as you know, congressman, that President Biden took what the white house calls responsible action by waiting to shoot down this huge chinese spy balloon. Do you agree with that assessment, sore should the u. S. Have knocked this balloon out of the sky on day one as soon as it crossed into u. S. Airspace . No, i think he did exactly the right thing, which is, you know, first of all the threat of its collection capabilities were severely mitigated i think through Counter Measures weve taken to jam their electronics and so forth. But there was a threat of a large debris field. And also they wanted to probably collect on the balloon as it was on its journey to learn as much as possible about its capabilities. And then finally when people and property were out of harms way, to take it down. So i think it was exactly the right course. Your colleague, congressman mike quigley, told cnn earlier today that it just did not make sense for china to send a spy balloon over the United States especially right now. What do you think . Well, were going to find out very soon the nature of this spy balloon. Well know the who, what, when, where, and how hopefully related to that balloon once we salvage the technology. But at the end of the day i think that probably there were actors within the Chinese Communist party who continued with their aggressive surveillance, and its not even clear whether the left and the right hands knew what they were doing in terms of the chinese Foreign Ministry and others knowing about this. Of course if they did it would really question the sincerity of their diplomatic overtures, wolf. You know, i think that chairman xi would you know, we just have to really question how eager he is to solve our diplomatic issues and to do so in a responsible way. And the chinese must have known that as soon as a huge balloon like this crosses into u. S. Airspace the United States would know that right away. It was not going to be any secret crossover of the United States. The pentagon as you know has flatly denied the Chinese Governments claim the balloon was serving some sort of civilian Research Purpose like weather, for example. How do you expect this situation to impact tensions with china right now . Tensions are pretty high because of taiwan already. I i have to say that particular claim that its a Weather Balloon is a george santosstyle whopper, wolf. I dont think anyone believes it. And i think you know, i think were going to find out very soon exactly the truth behind this surveillance equipment once they salvage and examine it. I particularly think that the chinese are going to have some explaining to do, and theyre going to have to own up to it. But regardless, it doesnt decrease tensions, wolf. If anything it just keeps them at the state they are at and maybe worsens them. But for the sake of all of us, were going to continue to uncover the facts behind the ccbs threat to us, on the committee, counter them, and hopefully come back another day to diplomatic resolve our disputes with the ccp even as we work with our friends and allies and partners in the region with our collective mutual defense. How worried should we be about some sort of actual military confrontation emerging in the next months or years between the United States and china . Well, as you know cia director burns said the other day that chairman xi has instructed the Peoples Liberation army to be ready to invade taiwan by 2027. And so that is a very short timeline. Thats just four years away. And i think we have to realize that we cannot have in taiwan what has happened with ukraine. That is a criminal invasion of ukraine. We cant have that happening in east asia with taiwan. And so thats why its all the more reason to me as a member of the Intelligence Committee to work with our colleagues to make sure that the ukrainians prevail because i think that chairman xi is watching that conflict very carefully. And then, secondly, we have to work with our taiwan partners and friends of the region to make sure that theyre adequately supplied for their own selfdefense. Its not only legally bound for us to do so under the taiwan relations act, but its the right thing to do and the smart thing to do as well. Yeah, and the other day a top u. S. Air force general publicly stated that he thought the u. S. And china would be in conflict by 2025. Boy, you hope that doesnt happen. Congressman krishnamoorthi, as usual thank you so much. A bitter deep freeze this week sets a new record for wind chill. How low did it go . Thats coming up next on this Special Edition of the Situation Room. Now to the other big story were following tonight, the arctic blast of winter, now loosening its grip on the northeast here in the United States, but not before shattering records. The wind chill, get this, in mount washington, new hampshire, plunged to 108 below zero last night. Thats a new u. S. Record. Other part of the region suffered through similar bitter cold before warm up a bit this afternoon. Cnn has exclusive new reporting that raises real questions about security. Also this is another important story security protocols at the United States Supreme Court. Sources saying some justices have used personal email accounts for sensitive work documents rather than secure servers, and burn bags meant to hold sensitive documents meant to be destroyed were row leanly left open and unattend in the hallways. More on the security lapses that were not made public in the courts report on the Dobbs Decision leak investigation. Reporter cnn has learned that long before the leak of that draft opinion, security protocols when it come to documents at the Supreme Court were very lax. That could have led to the leak, or at the very least it hindered the investigation into the leak. For example, several of the justices over the years, sometimes they would put Sensitive Information into personal emails. That information belonged on secure servers. And the person who told me this wasnt suggesting that a justice leaked a draft copy of an opinion, but at the very least it showed the justices themselves werent setting a good example to the chambers, to their employees about how to deal with sensitive documents. Another issue, socalled burn bags, bags where you put Sensitive Information and theyre later burned or shredded. At the Supreme Court theyre taken down to a locked bin and later to a shredding company. Theres no uniform policy about how to deal with these. Theyd be stapled closed, sometimes the bags would pile up in the desk, and sometimes be left in the hallway for pickup. The problem with that is these hallways were not public, but this is no way to deal with Sensitive Information. In her report, the marshall of the Supreme Court, she laid out a lot of security recommendations here, and chief Justice John Roberts said hes going to launch a review into how documents are handled. But for this particular leak that so rocked the court and the nation, all this comes too late. Arian devogue, cnn, washington. Thank you very much. To our viewers, thanks very much for joining me. Im wolf blitzer in the Situation Room. Well have an update on the chinese Spy Balloon Being shot down. And on cnn weekend this morning. Starts at 6 00 a. M. Eastern. Thanks very much for watching. Good night. This valalentines day, give the gift of shine. At zales, the diamond store. Think hes posting about all that ancient roman coinage . No. Hes making realtime money moves with merrill. So no matter what the marks doing, hes ready. And thats. So no matter what the marhow you collect coins. Your money ner stops working for you with merrill, a Bank Of America company. Inner voice Kombucha Brewer if i just stare at these payroll forms. My Business Payroll taxes will calculate themselves. Right . Uhh. Nope. 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