U.S. shoots down object that crossed into airspace near Alaska

Nick Schifrin:

Yes, so John Kirby said the two, the object vs. balloon, are different, in terms of apples and oranges, for two reasons.

One is the size. The Chinese spy balloon, which you see there, was 200-feet-tall, had a payload the size of a jetliner. And the object today was the size of a small car, and not clear that the object today was capable of any kind of surveillance like the U.S. assessed that spy balloon was for.

But the response, Geoff, was really dramatically different. The Pentagon yesterday argued that it did not shoot down the Chinese spy balloon over Alaska because it wasn't going to be easy to salvage there. And the director of operations on the Joint Staff again just yesterday argued that he didn't want to be too quick on the trigger to shoot down the spy balloon because they wanted to watch it as it flew over the United States and observe it and learn from the balloon.

And so a very different response to this object from both the military and President Biden after bipartisan criticism of the president for not shutting down that spy balloon earlier. But, Geoff again, officials stress that the main difference here was the altitude; 40,000 feet was just too much of a threat to civilian aircraft to allow it to keep floating.

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