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Chinese Spy Balloon Capable Of Monitoring U.S. Communications; House GOP's Weaponization Of Government Committee Holds 1st Hearing; Senate Grills Southwest Airlines Over Christmas Travel Meltdown; Reporter Arrested For Covering Train Derailment Live. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired February 09, 2023 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:31:32]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Today, the House of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution condemning China over its spy balloon entering U.S. air space.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: The FBI announced they are in the early stages of examining the remnants of the shot-down spy craft.
Officials told lawmakers some of what they've learned, including the revelation that the balloon was capable of monitoring U.S. communications and was just part of a larger multi-continent Chinese espionage program.
CNN's Natasha Bertrand is in Washington with details.
What are you learning?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Victor. So we are learning more about the balloon's actual capabilities here.
According to a senior State Department official who briefed lawmakers earlier today, that balloon that was shot down on Saturday was actually capable of collecting signals intelligence, which essentially means that it was potentially able to collect intelligence about conversations.
And also that these balloons were actually part of a fleet that were flown over more than 40 countries across five continents.
So learning more there about the actual capabilities that the balloon had and just how large this fleet actually was.
In briefings today, U.S. officials did emphasize that, ultimately, the U.S. has protocols to protect its sensitive information.
And we are told by a senior administration official that the balloon actually was not very sophisticated in terms of what it could pick up, and that the U.S. tried to avoid unencrypted communications in the vicinity of the balloon. Also, the balloon did not necessarily transmit information back to
Beijing, because, once it realized that the U.S. knew that it was in U.S. air space, it apparently stopped those transmissions.
There are still a lot of questions here about why the U.S. did not shoot it down a lot earlier, particularly when it entered U.S. air space over Alaska.
And what a senior Pentagon official told lawmakers today is that, essentially, the U.S. just wanted to wait and see what the balloon was going to do, and potentially gather intelligence on it.
Here's what he said.
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LT. GENERAL DOUGLAS SIMS, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: There was no hostile act or hostile intent. That would be the first. There was no impact to aviation routes, which would be another piece of that.
The other would be, there was no -- at the time, there was no suspected impact to critical intelligence gathering ability, in terms of infrastructure. That changed as the balloon made -- as it path continued.
And as we reconstruct the path, we are not correspondent with intelligence gathering in Alaska. And based on that, the assessment continued from NORAD and NORTHCOM to continue to observe and report.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERTRAND: So, Victor and Bianna, we are reporting that there was a Defense Intelligence Agency report that outlined, on January 27th, the day before this balloon entered U.S. air space, that a foreign object was headed our way.
Again, the U.S. did not view this with particular urgency, because they had seen these kind of balloons before and did not view it as a major threat. And they wanted to wait to see where it would go and if they could collect intel on it.
The balloon did end up making a sharp turn southward towards Montana and that's when U.S. officials became increasingly concerned and the president was then briefed.
GOLODRYGA: That was around the 31st that the president was briefed.
Natasha Bertrand, thank you.
BLACKWELL: Let's discuss with former deputy director of National Intelligence, Beth Sanner and retired Colonel Cedric Leighton.
Welcome to you both.
Colonel, let me start with you. You heard there in Natasha's reporting that the administration
believes that the technology is not sophisticated. There were no intel-collecting capabilities on the balloon, on this drone beyond what the Chinese had through other methods.
Is this less egregious than initially thought? Is it a huge deal? Your thoughts?
[14:35:03]
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Victor, I'm not so sure I buy the latest reporting -- I certainly buy what Natasha is saying, but I don't buy what the administration is saying about this.
I think the capabilities of the balloon were probably pretty significant. They were probably were pretty similar to what the Chinese can get from their satellites.
The other parts is that Natasha did mention was the fact that they probably cut the communications link from the balloon back to China, back to its home base in China in order to avoid getting intercepted and giving us a better look at how they communicate with each other.
So I think these balloons have the potential of being sophisticated, but I don't think we know all the answers yet. I would still consider it to be a pretty big threat -- Victor?
BLACKWELL: Beth, same question to you. Do you think it's as much of a threat as we thought it was at the end of last week when we first learned about it?
BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think it poses a threat, as Cedric said. But I also believe that, because we saw it and we were able to monitor it, we were able to mitigate any direct threat from this particular balloon at this time.
I think that, you know, the ability for us now to collect this information off the floor and really examine it, it's actually, as a former intel person, this is a gift. It's a gift from the Chinese,
Now that we will have it in our hands, we will be able to explain to everybody exactly what this is. And we will be able to protect and prevent problems with this sort of collection in the future.
BLACKWELL: Let me stay with you, Beth.
We know that this was discovered, became public right before Secretary Blinken was headed off to China to meet with President Xi. And of course, that's now been postponed. Calls to China are not being answered, essentially.
Here's the president last night on PBS.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Have relations now between the U.S. and China taken a big hit?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: You think that's true, that this has not worsened relations between the two countries?
SANNER: Well, you can look at that from two different angles. One is that the relationship the China is essentially at an all-time low.
We had a big -- a little bump, a positive bump coming out of the President Biden/President Xi meeting in Bali in November. And that kind of prevented a continuing downward spiral. But things are pretty bad.
So, I guess I disagree in that I do think that there was a path to resuming dialogue with China, which I actually believe is very important to have open communications. That's how you prevent the wheels from coming off the bus.
And now we have done that. So I would say, we've taken another hit, but things were already strategically very low.
BLACKWELL: Colonel, one more element of Natasha's reporting there, that the spy balloon entered U.S. air space over Alaska. And the Defense Intelligence Agency disseminated an internal memo, did not flag it as urgent.
So the top officials were not alarmed. Instead, an opportunity to observe and collect intelligence.
How could they not -- considering we know there were balloons that passed over before, there's a large network of them, should this have been flagged?
LEIGHTON: I certainly think it should have been flagged, Victor.
The key thing here is lack of imagination. And as Beth and I both know, it's one of the most important things is to get inside the head of the adversary.
And we failed to appreciate in moments like this sometimes what the adversary is actually up to.
And in this particular case, it's an ingenious way of collecting intelligence information, has a lot of potential capabilities, a lot of possibilities for them from a collection standpoint.
And that's something that should have definitely been flagged for the chain of command and potentially all the way up to the president.
BLACKWELL: Colonel Cedric Leighton, Beth Sanner, I appreciate the insight. Thank you.
[14:39:29] GOLODRYGA: The GOP-controlled House making good on another promise as they hold their first hearing on the alleged weaponization of the federal government. We are live on the Hill with an update. That's next.
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BLACKWELL: A new House committee charged with investigating the so- called weaponization of the federal government is holding its first hearing on Capitol Hill right now.
GOLODRYGA: The committee is chaired by Republican Representative Jim Jordan and was created by the new GOP-led House majority to investigate alleged discrimination by the government against conservatives.
CNN's Sara Murray is live on Capitol Hill.
So, Sara, what more are you hearing so far?
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They've gotten through their first panel of their first subcommittee hearing.
As you can imagine, Republicans are sort of laying out their argument without a ton of evidence of why they believe the federal government has targeted conservatives. And they've gotten a lot of pushback from Democrats.
Take a listen to Jim Jordan framing up his argument along with Delegate Stacey Plaskett, the top Democrat on this subcommittee.
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REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Protecting the First Amendment shouldn't be partisan, protecting the Constitution shouldn't be partisan, and protecting the fundamental principle of equal treatment under the law should not be partisan.
[14:45:03]
DEL. STACEY PLASKETT (D-VI): I'm deeply concerned about the use of this select subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories, and advance an extreme agenda that risks undermining Americans' faith in our democracy.
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MURRAY: Now, in this first hearing, we heard from Senators Chuck Grassley, Ron Johnson, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. We heard complaints about the Russia investigation. We heard complaints about suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story.
We heard more misinformation about coronavirus vaccines and their sort of personal feelings that they had been accused of spreading misinformation and sort of personally feeling targeted by levers of government. We heard from Congressman Jamie Raskin, who really framed up the
argument for Democrats, saying that the real weaponization of the federal government is this committee.
And he pointed to instances, when Donald Trump was president. He used the federal government to target people he was opposed to.
Back to you guys.
GOLODRYGA: And there we see Elliot Williams, who is often on our air --
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GOLODRYGA: -- testifying right now.
Sara Murray, thank you.
BLACKWELL: A cable news reporter was arrested when he started reporting during a news conference about the Ohio train derailment. We'll tell you what went wrong and how everyone, from the network executives to the state's governor, are reacting. That's ahead.
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[14:50:45]
GOLODRYGA: The Senate Commerce Committee is hearing testimony today from the top executives of Southwest Airlines over what exactly happened this past holiday travel season that resulted in more than 16,000 canceled flights.
And it wasn't just the top brass that was there to testify. The president of the Southwest Airlines Pilot Association was there, too.
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CAPT. CASEY MURRAY, PRESIDENT, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES PILOTS ASSOCIATION: For years, our pilots have been sounding the alarm about Southwest's inadequate crew scheduling technology and outdated operational processes. Unfortunately, those warnings have been summarily ignored by Southwest leaders.
Our pilots were right. The association's goal of today's hearings is not to say "we told you so" but right doesn't make our pilots feel any more secure.
Our hearts are broken. The December 2022 meltdown was as tragic as it was historic.
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BLACKWELL: CNN's Gabe Cohen is following this for us.
What else is Southwest leadership telling lawmakers? GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor and Bianna, we heard from
Southwest's chief operating officer. And his opening message was, we messed up.
He repeatedly, repeatedly apologized to lawmakers acknowledging the system failures after that December storm, the problems that the airline had getting their aircrafts de-iced and back up and running, as well as the issues rescheduling and reconnecting their crews to their aircraft.
Take a listen to how the executive explained it.
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ANDREW WATTERSON, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: Let me be clear, we messed up. And I would like to explain to you how we messed up.
In hindsight, we did not have enough winter operations resiliency. To that end, we moved swiftly to make them more resilient. We will invest what's needed to execute that plan in a timely and efficient manner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: So there you hear Southwest is vowing to do better in the future.
The COO says they have a software update to their crew scheduling system that's going to be going live tomorrow. And they're also planning to upgrade their entire winter resiliency operation.
A top-to-bottom fix that's going to cost many millions of dollars. And the airline says they're hoping to have a plan in place for that by March.
And, look, they have repeatedly said they believe they're already better equipped to handle a meltdown than they were back in December.
And they've made a lot of progress in paying back those customers. Southwest says they have now reimbursed 273,000 customers of those passengers who were stranded. Victor, Bianna, they say they have less than 11,000 to go.
BLACKWELL: All right, Gabe Cohen, thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Well, happening now, the family of the late cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, is announcing a new lawsuit against Alec Baldwin and the production company behind the film "Rust." We're monitoring this for you. Stay with us.
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[14:57:55]
BLACKWELL: A "NewsNation" reporter is out of jail after he was arrested for what he said was just doing his job. GOLODRYGA: Correspondent Evan Lambert was doing a live report on the
Ohio train derailment when he was abruptly asked to leave and then pushed to the ground and handcuffed by police.
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UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: He's a reporter for "NewsNation." It's all being recorded right now.
EVAN LAMBERT, NEWSNATION CORRESPONDENT: I hope it is. It's horrible.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Because you can't talk to people about doing their jobs.
LAMBERT: Oh, my god. I cannot believe this.
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You hear how stunned he was that this was happening to him.
CNN's Jason Carroll joins us now.
What was Evan charged with.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRSPONDENT: He was charged with criminal trespass and resisting arrest, if you can believe it.
And in that video that you saw there just moments before, he was physically thrown to the ground. I mean, I think that's what's so shocking to so many people who were there.
We were there with Lambert, you know, there in East Palestine, Ohio, for some time covering this story. He was reporting during a live event, which, as you guys know, reporters, we do this all the time, D.C., all across the country.
During a live report, he was told he was being too loud and was told to stop reporting. He stopped reporting.
And remember, this was during a critical moment during the press conference when so many people were waiting to hear information about when an evacuation order would be lifted.
He stopped reporting. Shortly thereafter, he was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, arrested and charged.
Now, Ohio's governor was speaking during this particular moment in time. He sort of heard about what was happening. He was asked about it and said he did not approve of what was going on.
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GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): I didn't see it. I heard a commotion. Didn't know what went on until I was told and she gave me that information. I'm not sure she knew much about it or what happened. So all I can say is that person had a right to be reporting.
He should have been allowed to report. If they were in any way hampered from reporting, that certainly is wrong and it's not anything that I approve. In fact, I vehemently disapprove of it.
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[14:59:56]
CARROLL: Well, Lambert is a national correspondent for "NewsNation."
That particular network issued a statement that said the following, in part, "Evan handled this unfortunate situation with true professionalism, and appreciate his commitment as a journalist whose goal is to report stories that are fair and unbiased.
