Norad Commander News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> now, santos was completely denying the allegations. he also was making a reference to the fact that this prospective staffer who is a former reporter made some audiotapes, recorded conversations with santos and then leaked them. but this is just the latest serious allegation in a long string of allegations against the embattled congressman. >> a long string that keeps on getting longer. melanie, thank you. it is the top of the hour. just a short time ago the pentagon defended the president's choice to delay shooting town a suspected spy balloon from china. a fight jet brought it...

type of significant intelligence collecting capability or what they might have been intended for. at this white house briefing, what you did hear from national security spokesman john kirby is there is clearly a shift into a robust, all-of-government approach to get more answers, not just to the three objects shot down over the course after a three-day period but what they're seeing in the skies. the widening of the apertures, it's at least one element of why we've seen this more over the course of the past couple days. as you noted, victor, this is unprecedented in terms of u.s. fig...

We will evaluate each and every event on its own merits and we'll make decisions based upon the recommendations of north com, norad commander, the chairman of the joint chiefs. they'll make recommendations to me and i'll evaluate and make recommendations to the president. again, these three events, each presented a risk to safety of flight. we don't know if they were actually collecting intelligence, but because of the route that they took out of an abundance of caution, we want to make sure we have the ability to examine what these things are and potentially what they were doing. >> the defen...

Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck told reporters at the Pentagon that the size of the debris field is estimated to be 1,500 meters by 1,500 meters in about 50 feet of water off the South Carolina coast.

>> reporter: yeah, the commander of norad did speak to reporters and he was giving an update on the state of the recovery operation here. and he told reporters that the debris field right now from this balloon is expected to be about one square mile. so not nearly as much as had been projected previously which was as much as seven miles. but at the same time it will take more time of course to analyze and recover all of the debris. but he did also touch upon some fwa gaps in the u.s. ability to track balloons that have come before this one. as we have since learned, there were at least three o...