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Country. rachel: he makes such a great point. it is eye-opening for us to see. we know what the chinese are up to. instructive as citizens to see how the leaders respond. if this is how they're responding to such an obvious thing we could shoot down, send a message back, don't ever come over our airspace again. our citizens see this, you're sending a message on all levels to our allies as well. that you know, we're not going to put up with this stuff from china. it is instructive on a lot of levels. pete: i hope it's a sputnik moment. i don't think it will be. it will be mocked and dismissed t...

The giant chinese balloon that had been floating over the united states has been shot down by an american fighterjet, off the coast of south carolina. the balloon, which the us says was being used to spy on military sites, appeared to plummet straight into the sea. china says it was a weather observation device which strayed off course. tim allman reports. for days now, all eyes have been on the solitary object floating serenely through us airspace. was it a harmless weather balloon, or a spy in the sky sent by the chinese? whatever it was, the american government had decided enough was enough...

Determine when it was safe to do so. president biden: and on wednesday when i was briefed the own the balloon i or thed the pentagon to shoot it down as soon as possible doubt h without doing any damage to anyone on the ground. they decided best time to do it in water 12-mile limit. >> reporter: airspace in sovereign territory extends 12 nautical heels off the coast. china maintained this was not obvious spy tool but a weather balloon that juan dered off course. they called it an attack unmanned civilian airship. the u.s. use of force is serious overreaction and violation of international acti...

So i think the president made a very clear and decisive decision in asking the military to take it out as soon as possible, and they advised that the best time to do it was when it was over water. >> let me just ask you one quick follow-up question to some of this reporting that this may have occurred -- appears to have occurred during the trump administration as well. we just didn't know about it. it sounds as though maybe lawmakers weren't told about it, and there might have been national security officials in the trump administration who didn't know about it. is it plausible the pentagon wo...

And that was our challenge, and we had to do that by introducing undercover agents and officers and also by surveillance techniques, and eventually that led to a wiretap, a title 3 interception, and lastly but not least, of course, the search warrants we served on all of their facilities. >> fascinating stuff. all right. we're going to be watching tonight. kurt mackenzie, thank you very much and great work on your part. we appreciate it. be sure to tune in. the all-new cnn film "american pain" premieres tonight at 9:00 eastern and pacific only on cnn. coming up, the u.s. coast guard celebrat...