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U.S. Recovery Efforts In Downed Chinese Spy Balloon Underway; Latest Poll Showed Muted Enthusiasm Among Democrats For Biden Reelection Campaign; ChatGPT Proves It Could Likely Pass Medical Licensing Exam; Navy Divers Helping Recover Chinese Balloon Wreckage; Source Says, California Officials Float Cutting Off Phoenix, Vegas From Colorado River. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired February 05, 2023 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:14]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

At this hour we are learning critical new details about when the Pentagon learned about the Chinese spy balloon and when they realized they must tell the president about it. This comes as U.S. Navy divers and other military personnel are scouring the ocean floor off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, collecting the wreckage of the balloon downed yesterday by a U.S. fighter jet. Republicans, meantime, are condemning President Biden for failing to take action on the balloon sooner.

Let's get the latest on the balloon and today's recovery efforts. CNN national security reporter Zachary Cohen is here.

Zachary, what more are we learning about this balloon? And, I guess, at some point, they need to pull it up out of the ocean and start examining it.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, Jim. I think at this early stage, it's important to know that U.S. officials are not buying the Chinese government's explanation that this was just a civilian aircraft. It was for research purposes. They have strongly indicated, Defense officials and administration officials, strongly told us that this was used for spying and they believe that it was used to try to collect data about sensitive U.S. Military sites across the country.

Now, that raises an interesting question, though, and one that the Biden administration is going to have to grapple with in the next few days. If they know that that was the intent of this balloon, why did they not shoot it down before yesterday? Now that is the question Republicans and Democrats are asking today. And we're learning through our sources that the reasoning is a little bit complicated.

Now we know that the Biden administration told reporters recently that the safety was the key issue. Right? They didn't want to shoot this balloon down over land, risk having it fall on people or infrastructure below. But the other part of this, and this is something Congressman Garamendi said earlier today on CNN, that they wanted to wait so they could monitor the surveillance aircraft and pick up interesting information about what this balloon was doing and what kind of data it was trying to collect. Take a listen to what he said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): I can assure you that we were gathering information. We probably gathered information the Chinese did not want us to have. Communication systems, the way in which they are communicating from that balloon probably to satellites. Also what it was that the Chinese were looking for as they were on this little journey. And also all of the detail and we'll go back and we'll take all of that apart and we'll learn from this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So the congressman obviously a Democrat and a member of the House Armed Services maybe previewing what Biden officials are going to tell lawmakers over the next couple of days when they're going to be pressed to explain this decision to wait. It took seven days before the administration and the president ultimately made the call to shoot this down. The president said he gave the order on Wednesday, but because they needed to wait until it moved out over the ocean, it only happened yesterday. But no question they're going to face questions about this.

ACOSTA: Yes. There are always unintended consequences. You shoot it down over land, you don't know where it's going to end up. And at the same time it sounded as though what Pentagon officials were saying yesterday they were intrigued by this somewhat and wanted to know what's going on here, what can we learn about this thing.

Zachary Cohen, thank you very much.

Now to Surfside Beach, South Carolina, where locals watched the balloon get shot down in real time. CNN's Carlos Suarez is there.

Carlos, officials are still working on recovering the debris. What are you seeing right there? Any indication at all? Any sense at all as to what's happening off the coast in this recovery process from where you are?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, Jim, really it's the only story that folks out here are talking about in this part of South Carolina. That along with the rainy weather and some of the cold temperatures that have been hitting this part of South Carolina.

A lot of this is playing out off to the coast to the right of me here. We're talking about anywhere between at least 10 miles where it's believed that this debris field is now being surrounded by a number of Coast Guard vessels as well as military ships.

We're told that despite this weather, federal officials don't believe that it's going to take crews a whole lot of time being able to get to all of this debris in large part because we're told that it is in pretty shallow water. Initially, they thought that this was going to land in a deeper part of the ocean out here, but now we're being told that it's really in waters that's only about 47 feet deep.

And so their hope is that divers as well as some other unmanned equipment is going to be able to get to the debris. They're going to be able to raise all of it up and put it onto a military vessel where it is no doubt going to be analyzed and then eventually be taken from South Carolina up to Virginia.

We're told, again, all of this is playing out off the coast of South Carolina. They expect to be able to get to it relatively quick, even though we have had some pretty spotty weather out here. Officials have told CNN they don't expect this to take anywhere between weeks or even a month. They expect to get to this in the next couple of days.

[16:05:00]

But, Jim, underscoring just how much of an effort is under way out here up and down this coast, the debris field that is being put out we're being told is about seven miles long and so they are already telling folks that live out here if you do come across this debris, any of it that may have washed ashore, don't bother taking a photo of it, don't bother taking it home with you, just leave it alone because it is now part of a federal investigation -- Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes. All those beach combers out there with their metal detectors, be careful with that stuff if it watches ashore. Local officials want to make sure they get that word out.

Carlos Suarez, thank you very much.

Let's bring in Leon Panetta, former Defense secretary, CIA director under President Obama, spends sometime as chief of staff, just about everything here in Washington. It is always great when he comes on with us.

Leon, thanks so much for being with us. We appreciate it. Let me ask you this, you know, congressional source tells us that there will be a briefing for the so-called Gang of Eight lawmakers, the top leaders in both chambers, and the key Intelligence Committee members as you know. The Navy is in the process of recovering the spy balloon surveillance equipment. What do you think they're going to find? Do you think they'll find much that's useful?

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER OBAMA: Well, that's a very important briefing that ought to be provided to our congressional leaders. Particularly if it's confirmed that this balloon had the capability to pick up sensitive information and was an intelligence gathering mission, was on an intelligence-gathering mission. And secondly, whether it was maneuverable. I think those are the key points.

If it is a spy balloon, if it's maneuverable, then clearly invading U.S. air space was of concern and I think the president made the right decision to shoot it down. So there's an awful lot of information we need to know in order to confirm our worst suspicions. ACOSTA: And you've been in the position of Defense secretary, CIA

director, White House chief of staff. Would you have advised the president to shoot down the balloon immediately, as soon as it was becoming noticeable over the skies in Montana or do you think it made some sense from an intelligence-gathering standpoint to let it drift for a while and let it get out over the ocean where it can be brought down without really any potential for danger below?

PANETTA: Well, you know, there are going to be lessons from all of this with regards to this kind of spy balloon if, it is, in fact, a spy balloon. If it was that, and if we were aware of the balloon, I think we should have taken steps to prevent it from entering our air space and I'm not sure that we should have allowed it to simply crossover the country, crossover what were obviously sensitive military sites. I don't see the logic of that.

So the question obviously is the Pentagon said that there were risks here. I understand that argument. That there were debris risks. At the same time I think we should have acted earlier if our suspicions were valid that this was, in fact, on an intelligence mission. I hope in the future we make clear to the -- to China that this kind of incident cannot happen again. And it will not happen again.

And in the future, if we see that kind of balloon, we are going to -- if they don't take action to prevent that balloon from entering our air space, that we will indeed shoot it down much earlier than we did this time around.

ACOSTA: And I think if I have you straight, you're saying that you think this should have been shot down perhaps over Montana, something like that, maybe over a sparsely populated area, that sort of thing, before it crossed over the entire -- almost the entire continental U.S.?

PANETTA: Yes, that bothered me that it was allowed to transverse the entire country. And for that reason, I think it probably would have been well for the president to have been transparent with the country about what was happening here. When they initially found that the balloon was there, when they considered it to be an intelligence- gathering balloon, and frankly, when the president made the decision to shoot it down.

If he made the decision on Wednesday to shoot it down, I think that should have been made public. It would have prevented some of the criticism that occurred later and the American people I think are entitled to know just exactly what our adversaries are up to. So I think greater transparency would have helped the White House as well.

ACOSTA: And our reporting indicates that the Pentagon waited a bit to inform the president of this.

[16:10:07]

Would that have rankled you a bit if you had been the White House chief of staff in the middle of all this?

PANETTA: You bet. I think --

ACOSTA: I suspect so.

PANETTA: I think when the Defense Department, when the Pentagon sees a suspicious large balloon that is about to enter our air space and impact on our sovereignty, I think they have an obligation to let the president of the United States know that immediately so that he can then decide what steps are going to be taken in order to protect the company.

ACOSTA: And as we can see in this map, Secretary Panetta, and I can describe it to you if you're not looking at it on your screen, that the Chinese balloon was spotted near a number of U.S. military bases from Montana, through the middle of the country, all the way over to the Carolinas. I know you probably know exactly where all those bases are. And U.S. officials said they were taking steps to protect against foreign intelligence collection.

Do you think the Pentagon could have used electronic interference or other measures to prevent the balloon from acquiring important information? That is what the Pentagon was indicating yesterday, that they were able to mitigate this somewhat.

PANETTA: Well, I think it's very important to do the analysis on the technology that was aboard that balloon. We're making a lot of guesstimates at this point. But it seems to me, we do need to retrieve as much of that as we can in order to determine just how sensitive the technology was. If it was in fact the kind of technology that could gather intelligence or pick up signals of one kind or another, and really obtain very sensitive information, then that raises a lot more concerns about allowing it to do that and just exactly what China will do with that information.

If, in fact, it was a weather balloon, then, I think, obviously, the world needs to know that as well. So a lot is going to depend on what our intelligence officials and the FBI that look at that -- at all of that equipment, what determination they make as to what in fact was involved with this balloon. That's important for the United States. It's important for China and, frankly, it's important for the American people to know the truth.

ACOSTA: And just very quickly, the Chinese response after it was shot down was pretty pointed and they seem to be objecting, expressing, quote, "strong dissatisfaction" and so on. Shouldn't the president, shouldn't the White House be telling the Chinese essentially to shove it?

PANETTA: You know, we know the what, but we really don't know the why here, Jim. Why would China do something like this? They obviously knew that the balloon would be detected. They knew that the United States would respond. They knew that what happened was likely to happen. So why did they do it? What's the message they were trying to send? I have a feeling that they were probably trying to send a message that relates to our reconnaissance over China.

We do reconnaissance over China, operating from international air space. They've never liked it. They've always threatened our planes as a result of that. I really think they were trying to send a larger message about what we do to gather information on China.

ACOSTA: All right. Former Defense secretary, former CIA director, Leon Panetta, thanks, again, as always, for the time. We appreciate it.

PANETTA: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Good to see you.

All right. Coming up, how hard will it be to recover this balloon from the waters off the coast of South Carolina? We'll ask a salvage expert about how tough an operation this could be.

Also, voters won't cast the first primary ballots for nearly a year, but new reporting into CNN shows why President Biden may have his work cut out for him.

And later, concussions are on the rise in the NFL. Is there any way to make this sport safer.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:18:35]

ACOSTA: We have some new reporting into CNN this evening about how President Biden is seen by his own party and some lack of passion for re-election campaign by him. This matches brand-new CNN or polling I should say from other news outlets underscoring little enthusiasm among for voters for a rematch between President Biden and his former and possible future rival once again Donald Trump.

Joining me now Isaac Dovere.

Isaac, I mean, this is something that President Biden has run into before. He's overcome it. Then he beat a sitting president. But what are you finding?

ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, I spent part of last week in Philadelphia at the meeting of the Democratic National Committee. These are the state party chairs, the most involved Democrats, and they are so satisfied, I guess is the word to use for it. They feel so good about what Biden has done. They are happy with the results of the midterms. But they don't feel this overwhelming love and passion for Joe Biden.

Now, he would point out probably if the president were sitting here, that has been something that has come up again and again. And he's the president. When I was talking with Jaime Harrison, the DNC chair, about it, he said to me, look, Joe Biden's face isn't on a T-shirt. It turned out there was a lot of merchandise for sale at the DNC. None of it with Joe Biden's face on it. But Harrison said to me, but he won in 2020. And look at what's being delivered for the American people. That is the kind of confidence-first, government-can-work approach

that looks like we're going to get out of a re-election campaign rather than Joe Biden, Joe Biden, Joe Biden.

[16:20:05]

ACOSTA: Right. But as President Biden likes to say, and we've heard this countless times, don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative. But there is this new ABC-"Washington Post" poll that shows Biden trailing Trump in a hypothetical matchup. I know it's way too early to take all of this too, too seriously. But is that concerning for the White House, concerning for Democrats?

DOVERE: I think on the flipside of it, it's that they look at what the beginning of the House Republican majority has been and they see a bill that would have made a lot of abortions illegal, a bill that would have passed a national sales tax, the chaos in electing Kevin McCarthy speaker, and they say this is the perfect kind of contrast.

There are folks in the White House I think who couldn't have scripted this better themselves if they wanted to, as the lead in to what is looking like a re-election campaign coming. I'll tell you that speech that the president delivered on Friday night in Philadelphia felt very much like a re-election launch speech, including he was there with the vice president, there Joe and Kamala signs, and people chanting four more years.

So it's that kind of excitement against the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, against Donald Trump, for what the agenda is but again not so much for Joe Biden himself as a personality.

ACOSTA: All right. He's dealt with that before and he's overcome it. That is why he's president.

All right, Isaac, thanks very much.

Let's talk about more on all this with political commentator with CNN, David Axelrod.

David, great to see you. What do you make of all of this? Do you buy that there's this lack of enthusiasm for the president? I sort of feel like we've had this conversation before. And then President Biden overcomes it and he is the president, as Isaac and I were just talking about this. Can he overcome it again?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I think if the question is, can he run on his record and win, the answer to that is yes. I think you could -- if I were still a practicing political strategist and had the president's record, I think you could easily re-elect him. But, you know, the question is, has never been political. It's actuarial. You look at these polls, and you know, "The Washington Post" poll today, 58 percent of Democrats said they would prefer another candidate.

Yet the president has like north of 80 percent approval rating in most polls from Democrats for his performance. This isn't about his performance. It really is about age and you look at that "Washington Post" poll, 69 percent of voters under 40 said they would prefer -- or Democrats under 40, I believe it was, said they would prefer another candidate. So, you know, and that's a difficult thing to grapple with.

I think what their counting on to some degree is that Trump will either be the candidate on the other side and even though he was trailing Trump marginally, it really is a statistical tie in this poll. I think ultimately they have confidence they can beat Trump again. Or Trump isn't a nominee and, Jim, you're an expert on this, but there's a lot of -- you know, the President Trump said again this week that he won't guarantee that he's going to support the nominee of the Republican Party, and there is this sense that Trump, who, you know, is so loathe to admit failure, would accept if the party doesn't make him the nominee and would tear the nominee down.

So, you know, Republicans have their concerns as well. But this is a real thing for Biden. It's the biggest challenge he faces.

ACOSTA: And, in fact, there's this new "Washington Post"-ABC News poll which we were just talking about. It's showing that voters, they're not really, you know, enthusiastic about either Donald Trump or Joe Biden among them.

AXELROD: That's true. Yes.

ACOSTA: Yes. Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, 44 percent said they'd be OK with Trump as the nominee, 49 percent said they would want someone else. And I was -- you know, I was talking to a Trump adviser just last week, David, who were saying at this point the only person who can beat Donald Trump is Donald Trump. And, you know, you do get that sense --

AXELROD: He may just be up to the job, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes. He may just be up to the job. But as Isaac and I were talking about this before this segment began, you have to put, you know, a dollar into the jar if you say that Donald Trump can't be president again. I mean, there is that aspect of it that we're -- playing with fire a little bit thinking that, oh, no, he's -- there's just no way this time.

AXELROD: Yes, and, listen, that's one of the reasons why, you know, Democrats who are rallying behind Biden are rallying behind him because they fear the prospect or possibility of the return of Trump and, of course, Biden is the Trump slayer when it comes to politics, so -- and, you know, the question comes up, well, if not Biden, who would beat him. I mean I think that's a more involved discussion. But, you know, in a way they have this weird codependency.

[16:25:01]

I mean, you know, Trump has this obsession about unseating Biden who he considers a usurper. Biden, you know, considers Trump the sort of epitome of what he's fighting and needs him in some ways politically. So it's really an interesting situation. But, yes, that poll reflects the fact that the country isn't exactly clamoring for that rematch. ACOSTA: Yes. But let me ask you this because Isaac was getting to this

just a few moments ago about how White House officials are sort of doing cartwheels over the fact that they're dealing with the -- you know, this eye roll caucus over in the House.

How big of a factor is that because, as you know, David, presidents have run against, you know, do-nothing Congresses from here to eternity.

AXELROD: Yes, I think the do-nothing part is less -- is a little more benign than this. I mean, you know, there is some -- you know, the first subpoenas that Jim Jordan put out, the guy who wouldn't respond to one, had to do with, you know, the Justice Department and its, you know, looking into school board -- threats to school board members.

You know, I think that there are a lot of problems in our country and people want Congress and the president to work together to solve them and if the Republican House led by this sort of faction that has more power than their numbers goes off on these kind of ideological jags that don't relate to the day-to-day concerns of everyday people, they become a big target for Democrats in Congress but also for the president.

They will define the Republican Party in a way and that has to be a huge concern to a lot of Republican leaders.

ACOSTA: And that is exactly what Joe Biden ran against in 2020. You know, there was a pandemic going on. He was kind of doing these Zoom call things from his basement, and he would let Donald Trump suck up all the oxygen and do all of the cuckoo things that he would do.

AXELROD: And Jim --

ACOSTA: And then it was a perfect foil for Joe Biden.

AXELROD: And I think we should point out, you know, Republicans who are poised to win by historical standards, they were poised to win a big victory in the last midterms. They didn't. Why? Because -- partly because of Donald Trump, there were enough of these kind of far-out kind of election denier candidates who were nominated that they came to start to deny -- define the Republican Party.

So this is a real headache for the Republican Party and if they don't resolve it, you know, I think they're hoping DeSantis will take them off the hook. But if they don't resolve it, they could have a tough 2024.

ACOSTA: All right, David Axelrod, great to talk to you as -- we could do this all night. But we won't do it.

AXELROD: Yes.

ACOSTA: David, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

AXELROD: Thanks. You bet, you bet. ACOSTA: Coming up, the bot doctor will see you now. As artificial

intelligence gains steam, could AI physicians be coming to a hospital near you? Makes me a little uncomfortable thinking about it but we'll talk about that next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:30:00]

ACOSTA: The artificial intelligence tool, ChatGPT. is already passing exams from law and business schools, and now scientists say it is smart enough to correctly answer some practice questions for the U.S. medical licensing exam. So, what does that mean for the future of health care? CNN's Jacqueline Howard has more.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: This is getting a lot of attention. ChatGPT not only has answered complicated medical questions correctly more than half of the time but it got enough of those questions right to hypothetically pass the U.S. medical licensing exam.

Now, remember, ChatGPT is an online tool where you can type any questions into its system and it will answer you. Now, in this one pre-print paper, researchers from Harvard, Brown University and a treatment center Ansible Health found that ChatGPT performed at a greater than 50 percent accuracy when answering practice questions from across all three exams that are part of the U.S. medical licensing examinations and it exceeded 60 percent in most cases. That 60 percent is what researchers used as a threshold for passing the exams. The researchers wrote in their study, quote, therefore, ChatGPT is now comfortably within the passing range, end quote.

Now, this doesn't mean that ChatGPT is going to be your future doctor. Remember, it's not accurate all of the time. It still has its limits. But it could be used as a tool. It could help doctors write treatment plans for their patients in a way that's easy for patients to understand or it could help with writing study reports or gathering data for research. So, it will be interesting to see if or how ChatGPT may impact the medical world. Back to you.

ACOSTA: All right. And let's discuss with Dr. Megan Ranney, she is an emergency physician and deputy dean of Brown University School of Public Health. Doctor, what is your reaction to this? Do I -- do we have to worry about this, do you think? What's your sense?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, DEPUTY DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: ChatGPT is super cool and most of the physicians, medical students, physician assistants who I know are trying it out. We're trying to see how good it is at writing down a history or writing discharge papers.

[16:35:02]

In fact, it's one of the medical students who I worked with who is one of the co-authors on that study that Jacqueline was just talking about.

But it's coolness factor aside, there are a few things that stop us from using it in the clinical setting today and it may keep it from replacing us forever. The first is, as Jacqueline mentioned, it is still error prone, and we're talking about human health here. We cannot afford to have an A.I. tool that's 60 percent correct. We need one closer to 100 percent. Just think about autocorrect on your phone and how often it miscorrects a word. We can't let that happen in health care.

The second reason that it's not ready to replace physicians or other health care professionals is that human interaction. I frequently tell my trainees that our job is, of course, first to diagnosis and treat, but second, it is to take care of the patients. That human interaction, that bedside skill is something that no A.I. program can currently replicate.

But the third problem, Jim, is around ethics and safety. Patients need to know if A.I. is being used to help diagnosis them. There are also big concerns around cyber hacking. We've seen a huge increase in the number of cyber hacking incidents with health care facilities over the past few years. God forbid that someone hacks into an A.I. tool and totally patients, disrupts health care. That would be unconscionable. So, for now, it is hopefully going to be a tool that helps us but not replace us.

ACOSTA: And there are areas where you think it could help?

RANNEY: Absolutely. We are seeing a dramatic increase in the volume of data that we are dealing in health care, particularly in fields like radiology, where we have ever thinner slices of CAT scans and MRIs and fields like pathology, where we're looking under microscopes to diagnose cancer and other diseases. A.I. can help there to identify patterns. It can with training medical students, physician assistants and other health care professionals. That was actually the lens that those authors were using is can it be used as an education tool.

And the third thing is maybe it can help with some of the busy work that I get stuck doing. There has been study after study showing how so much of our time as health care professionals is spent in front of the computer screen instead of with patients. What if A.I. could help us get rid of the time with the electronic medical record? Maybe it will help with burnout, help us have better patient relationships. I can see places where it could be a tool, just like the stethoscope, to help us do a better job of taking care of the patient in front of us.

ACOSTA: Yes. I think it could work in my line of work as well. It could lend a hand here and there. But I don't want folks to go overboard with this. I still need a day job. But, Dr. Megan Ranney, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

RANNEY: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Coming up, the size of three buses blown up by a missile off the coast of South Carolina. Now under way, the delicate mission to collect the pieces of the Chinese spy balloon. A salvage expert joins me live to talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:40:00]

ACOSTA: Multiple U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels are securing a perimeter where the Chinese spy balloon went down. A senior U.S. military official say the debris landed in water that's about 47 feet deep, making it a, quote, fairly easy recovery for those divers.

Salvage expert Chip McCord is here to talk about this. He's the former U.S. Navy director of Ocean Engineering. Chip, if I hear 47 feet of water, it doesn't sound fairly easy to me, but give us your take on what you've seen so far and how likely is it to be successful that they'll salvage this wreckage.

CHIP MCCORD, FORMER U.S. NAVY DIRECTOR, OCEAN ENGINEERING: Well, when I first saw the explosion around there, obviously, there were many pieces that came off of it. So, the bigger pieces are going to fall down and should be able to be seen by sonar, the side-scansonar, when they tow it around there. The smaller pieces are going to be a little bit harder to find.

Big deal, the big key to this, though, was that they know exactly where it was when it was detonated in the sky and they should know fairly exactly where it hit the water. Then with currents and tides, they should be able to predict about where most of the items are resting on the bottom.

ACOSTA: And what concerns would you have about this recovery mission?

MCCORD: Well, in shallow water, side-scan sonar can be a little tricky if you have waves. And so it's nice they have nice weather. That's not -- that's not only for the sonar operations but it's also for the divers and any recovery vehicles that you're going to put in there. So, you want to have nice weather. I believe it's rainy down there now, which is not an issue but wind and waves can be.

47 feet is a fairly easy slope of -- the bottom there is pretty gentle and it's usually sand down there. So, things should be standing up on top of the sand. However, with that parachute, that's a big area that could be dragged by currents and tides. And so they just need to get equipment in the water and start looking for it.

ACOSTA: And then when they pull it ashore, and I guess they're planning to take it up to Quantico, and I suppose they'll lay it out in a warehouse or a hangar or something along those lines, perhaps like the NTSB does with an investigation, the pieces that are retrieved, do you think they'll be able to get a handle on what it is the Chinese were -- what they were up to with this equipment?

MCCORD: It depends on what they get -- again, Jim, it depends on what they get back.

[16:45:00] Most likely it's -- you can figure out what piece goes with what piece and how many pieces they have. If they get a big chunk of this thing, and that they should be able to technically determine what it was and what it was there for. If there's a lot of small pieces missing, one of the options that they would have is that they could drag the bottom with nets, you know, like fishing nets, scale trolleys or something like that. But that's still a long ways off. Most likely, they would be able to get -- hopefully get most of what they need just by divers and a quick -- hopefully a quick operation.

ACOSTA: And have you ever heard of a wreckage salvage operation like this one before? I mean, this is pretty unique.

MCCORD: Well, we've done lots of salvage operations. Obviously, a balloon, we've done space shots out of Cape Canaveral, Cape Kennedy down there, where the payload was in a lot of pieces and we needed to recover those pieces for various agencies in the federal government.

So, it's a thing that they can do. It just takes time. When you're working out in the water, and you got weather, you have to worry about and people with -- welfare, safety is number one. So, it will just take time. Hopefully, everything is one big pile and they'll be able to find it quickly.

ACOSTA: All right. It won't happen as quickly as impatient television news people would like to see it happen, but it will happen with the professionals at work. Chip McCord, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

MCCORD: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. We're showing live pictures right now of Surfside Beach, South Carolina, and as Chip was saying a few moments ago, it had been raining out there. And so, you know, that is going to be a factor. We'll see how the weather holds up as the hours goes on and any new developments in the recovery process, we'll bring those to you.

Coming up, imagine Phoenix or Las Vegas with no water. Tonight, a dire warning as western states fight over water rights. You're live in the CNN Newsroom.

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ACOSTA: States that share access to the Colorado River are locked in a bitter fight over how to share its dwindling water supply. And in one recent meeting, officials from California floated a jaw-dropping idea. They mentioned a modeling scenario that would cut off some of the largest cities that are heavily reliant on the Colorado for their drinking water.

CNN's Camila Bernal has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SARAH LARIVIERE, BURANK RESIDENT: This is a kind of mallow plant here. This is called cowboy's cologne.

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): By planting mostly native and drought resistant plants, Sarah Lariviere garden saves her time and money, but most importantly, water.

LARIVIERE: In the winter, I don't really have to water, maybe every three or four weeks, maybe not at all if there's rain, but in the summer, maybe every seven to ten days.

BERNAL: This kind of water conservation might eventually be mandated in states that depend on the Colorado River's vanishing water.

JONATHAN ZASLOFF, UCLA PROFESSOR OF LAW: There's not enough water. Everybody wants more of it.

BERNAL: These seven states have not been able to agree on how to achieve unprecedented water cuts. Months of bitter negotiations have collapsed, and it's now California versus everyone else.

ZASLOFF: California's side is that they essentially made a deal back in the late '60s, early '70s that if things are going to be running dry, then they get guaranteed a certain amount. The other states are saying, well, yes, but we've got this real crisis, so let's do it in a different way.

BERNAL: UCLA Professor Jonathan Zasloff says the law and the size of the state give California an advantage.

ADEL HAGEKHALIL, GENERAL MANAGER, METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT: What we're saying is let's do it slowly and gradually. Let's talk about how we do it because we need to collaborate. We have rights. Water rights are at the table.

BERNAL: But the six other states are showing their strength through a coalition.

THOMAS BUSCHATZKE, DIRECTOR, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES: I think all six of us will continue to collectively band together but also be willing to compromise more towards the middle.

BERNAL: All seven states are now waiting for the federal government to weigh in.

ZASLOFF: What could happen eventually, I think, is that the secretary of the interior is going to say, I'm going to make my decision in three months, and I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do. And then with that kind of incredible uncertainty, that might bring them to the table.

BERNAL: Another option is an expensive, lengthy and high-stakes legal battle at the Supreme Court.

ZASLOFF: It's much better to get a political decision than to get a litigation decision with a Supreme Court that they've learned is not particularly reliable on getting the facts right or getting the equities right.

BERNAL: So, they continue to negotiate and encourage the more than 40 million people in the west that depend on this water to conserve in any way possible, because more severe consequences could become a reality.

ZASLOFF: We can't think of water just as water, as just something that you drink. It's going to be everything that you do, not only in terms of landscaping but in terms of your food, in terms of your energy.

BERNAL: Experts believe the seven states probably won't agree on how to cut about 30 percent of the river water allocation.

LARIVIERE: So when we moved in, this was all grass.

BERNAL: But individuals can do their part.

LARIVIERE: I think there's more all of us can do, and I do think it's our responsibility.

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BERNAL (on camera): And everybody agrees that there needs to be cuts in water usage. They just don't agree on how those cuts are going to happen or who is going to have to make those cuts. That's why litigation is an option, but it is going to take a long time, time that we do not have, especially because the climate is changing. You just don't know how much water you're going to have this year or the year after that, making all of these negotiations even harder. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right. Camila Bernal, the fight over water continues out west, thank you very much.

Coming up, a U.S. official says the administration is confident that the now-destroyed Chinese spy balloon was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites. What more are we learning as the U.S. government collects debris from the Atlantic Ocean? We'll try to answer that question for you next. You're live in the CNN newsroom.

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