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U.S. Military Shoots Down High-Altitude Object Over Lake Huron; Survivors Being Pulled Out From Rubble 162 Hours After Quake; Philadelphia Eagles Takes On Kansas City Chiefs In Super Bowl LVII; Inflation Hits Valentine's Day Spending; Scientists; Great Salt Lake Will Disappear In Five Years Without Rescue; Aired 4-5p ET

Aired February 12, 2023 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:36]

PAULA REID, CNN HOST: I'm Paula Reid. Jim Acosta has the day off. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And we begin with breaking news. The U.S. Military has shot down another high altitude object this time over Lake Huron. This is according to a U.S. official and a congressional source briefed on the matter. This will be the fourth object in just the past nine days.

CNN's Kylie Atwood is at the State Department.

Kylie, what are you learning?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so what we're learning is in the last few hours, Paula, there was another high- altitude object that was shot down over Lake Huron. We really don't know the details about this object, you know, what it actually is, who is responsible for it, but significantly this is action that the United States has taken alongside Canada now three times over the course of the last few days.

There was an object that was shot down over waters surrounding Alaska, an object shot down over Canada, and now over at Lake Huron in between northern Michigan and Canada. That's according to a Pentagon source and a congressional source briefed on the matter.

We're also hearing just in the last few minutes here from a member of Congress from Michigan confirming this news. This is Congressman Bergman saying in a tweet, quote, "I've been in contact with DOD regarding operations across the Great Lakes region today. The U.S. Military has decommissioned another object over Lake Huron. I appreciate the decisive action by our fighter pilots. The American people deserve far more answers than we have."

We are waiting to hear from the Pentagon, of course, from the White House, of course. And this comes as there has been this heightened sense of vigilance surrounding the U.S. airspace over the course of just the last week or so after that Chinese spy balloon was downed off the coast of South Carolina -- Paula.

REID: Kylie Atwood, thank you. And let's bring in former NATO Supreme Allied commander, General

Wesley Clark.

All right, General, we now know that a fourth object has been shot down. What is your reaction to this news?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, obviously these are efforts to do something to get information about the United States. Now what it is they're collecting? Why they can't collect it by satellite? Whether this has been going on before, why it's taken us all this time or suddenly rediscovered, a lot of questions here. And I think the administration is looking at it very carefully.

The unclassified information thus far says that we discovered them by tracking signals that these balloons were coming over, these objects were coming over. Maybe they weren't visible on radar. If not, then why not? And there's some pilot talk out there that maybe they -- one of these devices can interfere with sensors on aircraft. Is that true?

So there's just a lot that we don't know in the public right now. But I'm encouraged that certainly we seem to be taking action on it. I assume we're getting all of them but maybe not. It has to be determined exactly what they're after but you have to believe it has something to do with targeting China's nuclear weapons. They got a huge nuclear weapon buildup. Maybe their satellites aren't accurate enough.

Maybe they can't see what they want to see. Maybe they want real time or last-minute information before they do something else. Don't know how you account for the surge. But it's -- I would guess it's more military technical than it is political diplomatic, although you can't rule that either.

This is a way of sending a message to the Biden administration and to the American people that, you know, you're not untouchable over there across the Atlantic. We want Taiwan, and we're going to get it someday, and, you know, this is a warning. Mind your own business. So it could have a political diplomatic signaling attached to it.

REID: To clarify, you believe this is likely an effort to gather intelligence related to their own nuclear program. Is that what you're saying?

CLARK: Yes. I think they're looking at targeting. I mean, you know, you can see certain things from satellites but maybe you can't see it precisely enough. Maybe you don't understand the full arrangement. Maybe you're afraid that we're running decoys and doing other things to throw their targeting off.

[16:05:02]

Maybe this is their way of being ultra-cautious. But it also could be that they're working simply on the -- to look for holes in the U.S. radar system and how to penetrate when they come in because we know that we've optimized our radars to look for incoming ballistic missiles and aircraft. So this is something with the lower radar signature coming in from an unknown or different trajectory. And maybe they're looking for holes in the radar system.

But I'm sure that the people in the Pentagon are going to look at all this and more on a classified basis. I just hope they'd tell us publicly what it is because we've got a lot of American public interest in this right now.

REID: Absolutely. And in the absence of information, conspiracy theories fill that hole. And of course we don't know the purpose of these four objects that have been shut down, but U.S. and Canadian officials clearly view them seriously enough to shoot them down. So in your assessment, how much of a threat to national security that these incursions pose?

CLARK: Well, it's hard to put a quantity or value on how much a threat it is. But it's a violation of sovereign airspace. And so whether it's a big threat or a little threat, you have to establish the principle of you don't go into someone else's sovereign airspace.

Now certainly if we have these things floated over China or Russia, they'd be shot down. Americans may remember -- some Americans my age might remember -- that in 1959, we had a U-2 pilot shot down over Russia, over the Soviet Union. We denied it. President Eisenhower lied about it, and then the Russians produced the pilot. And so they did shoot them down. They'd seen us during these flights for a long time. They finally developed a missile that could take down the aircraft. So you can't -- nobody should expect they could fly over U.S. airspace like this and not be taken down. It's just a matter of national stuff.

REID: Is it possible to truly secure our airspace from these kinds of threats?

CLARK: Sure. But it may not be immediately feasible. I mean, we've got all kinds of different technologies we could use but we haven't prioritized to deal with this kind of a threat. So I'm sure we will now. Now we know that there is a challenge there. We'll deploy the systems probably quite quickly to be able to take care of this challenge.

REID: I mean, four incidents since just last weekend. You know how China operates. Do you feel like they could perhaps be testing our defenses?

CLARK: I think that's -- whether that's the primary intention or simply a benefit for them, they are definitely testing the intentions. Now what we know is that some balloons have come across the periphery of the United States before. But we didn't detect them with our radars. It might have shown up as a radar on the (INAUDIBLE), but it may have just been something that didn't look like an aircraft, may have looked like the fuss on a spring for a minute or whatever, but we didn't detect.

We only detected it going back later looking at the signals coming out of it and how it was communicating. I assume these balloons are connected to satellites overhead. And so they're feeding the information up to a satellite. And so is it over the United States? We're able to pick up that back and forth transmission. So they didn't get away with it for long over the United States. We don't think. I would assume this was the first one that was shot down off the coast. But, you know, we're going to have to go back and unpack that, too, and look at it.

REID: These are pretty obvious objects. There are certainly more covert ways to do this. Are you concerned at all that the U.S. could be baited into taking these down, baited into some sort of conflict especially because this has become such a political flashpoint how these are handled?

CLARK: Well, I would say for sure it would be in Russia's interest if the United States and China were to move into a more stricter adversarial relationship, raise tensions, further divert American attention, further worry our European allies, sure. There could be an effort at that kind of provocation. You can't dismiss that.

REID: General Wesley Clark, thank you so much.

CLARK: Thank you.

REID: And joining us is CNN transportation analyst, Mary Schiavo. She is a former inspector general for the Department of Transportation.

Mary, your reaction to hearing that now, a fourth object has been shot down.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, I think General Clark certainly summed up the military implications and the defense implications of these balloon, but now that there have been so many, this is clearly a hazard to aviation as well.

[16:10:03]

These objects were flying at -- or floating at 40,000 to 60,000 feet. U.S. commercial and other aircraft, private aircraft and military aircraft can operate at those levels. It's close to the ceiling of commercial aircraft of course. How high the plane can fly. The pilots that have gone up to check these objects out have said that in some cases their communications were interrupted. They said they've been difficult to see.

They don't put out the usual signals to identify themselves which would allow transponders and most importantly collision avoidance equipment to work. And then of course every time one is spotted the aviation has to be moved away, there has to be a restricted zone and the military flights have to come up.

So it's obvious this is a hazard to aviation. And even if we weren't concerned about military implications it's the operations are illegal under the Federal Aviation Regulations so we have to take them out. At this point this is a hazard not only, you know, in terms of our national defense but in terms of our civilian aviation.

REID: And Mary, last night you spoke to Jim and you suggested that with us looking for more objects we're more likely to see more of them. Of course that makes sense. So this is just the binning of spotting these kinds of things?

SCHIAVO: Yes. And, you know, back when I was in the Department of Transportation, the inspector general, part of my responsibility was also, you know, cover the FAA. And what would happen is when things were spotted then more were often spotted. So sometimes they were, you know, real. Sometimes there were reports of things that weren't actually there. But when you go looking for something, you are more likely to find it.

There were incidents over the years, there were some over Detroit many years back and different places, so I think that we will find more. The real question is, as General Clark said, is how long have these been targeted and used for intelligence. And there was a report of one over Hawaii last February, February of 2022. So we know that these objects have been around at least for a year. The one over Colombia and Costa Rica. So I think many more will be found and we have many reasons to take care of them, not the least of which is our national defense but also to safeguard the security and the safety of our aviation operation.

REID: Yes. Particularly to the civil aviation, how big a threat are these?

SCHIAVO: They are big. And I've been working in the last -- over the last two and a half weeks, and when these were spotted over Alaska obviously the military here, I'm near a few military base. There were AWACS aircraft, with the surveillance aircraft went up from the bases, fighter jets went up. I mean, it really made the airspace very busy. And of course military and civilian planes don't mix too well together.

If the military is conducting operations obviously the civilian aircraft have to be directed away or grounded. And that will disrupt our aviation every time one of these has to be taken and aviation is going to be disrupted for the safety and security of everyone.

REID: Are you worried about the threat of copycats, pranksters, folks who would try to launch balloons just to cause trouble?

SCHIAVO: Well, not even -- not just so much copycats and pranksters. And over the years there have been balloon pranks pulled. But, you know, in the United States and other places around the world, in Europe, in China, in Russia, in Ukraine, I mean, there have been many efforts over recent years to develop what they call rigid wall dirigibles or in other words lifting floating objects, lifting body objects.

And so -- and yet it's not right to call them balloons. Airships have been in development. There are civilian airships that are in development. So there's lots of lighter than air airships and rigid wall dirigibles probably the best way to describe them. So those I think will probably be in jeopardy for a while in any of those efforts. And those are not hostile or prank activities. They are very important to develop and to proceed forward. But I think they might fly at their peril for a while.

REID: Sounds like it. Mary Schiavo, thank you.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

REID: And we continue to follow those breaking news, the shootdown of a fourth high-altitude object. And still ahead this afternoon, I'll talk to Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale what is the Defense Department telling him about what happened last night and Montana and also speak in moments with Ron Brownstein about the political problems facing the White House when it comes to all of these objects.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:18:45]

REID: Our breaking news, sources tell CNN the U.S. Military has shot down another high-altitude object this time over Lake Huron. It's the third such objects shot down in as many days.

Let's go to CNN's Arlette Saenz at the White House.

Arlette, what has the White House response been to this latest incidents?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, we are still waiting to hear officially from the White House about this latest takedown of an unidentified object today but over the past two days they really have been confronting multiple unidentified objects in both times, on Friday and Saturday, when those two were shot down. The White House said that the president directed those to be shot down out of an abundance of caution but so far the White House has been very cautious and how they are describing these unidentified object compared to that Chinese spy balloon which was shot down off the Carolina coast just last week.

Officials simply have been saying that these two are unidentified objects that were shot down on Friday and Saturday that those are much smaller in scope. Let me read you a statement from an NSC spokesperson which said, "These objects did not closely resemble and were much smaller than the PRC balloon and we will not definitively characterize them until we can recover the debris which we are working on."

[16:20:01]

Those recovery efforts will be critical as they tried to determine the size, the scope, origin and the purpose of each of these unidentified objects. But this all comes as President Biden just last week had faced a torrent of criticisms specifically from Republicans who were frustrated with the pace with which he decided to take down that Chinese spy balloon, letting it traverse across the country until it was out over water and then shooting it down.

And earlier today the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Turner said that he preferred the approach that the White House is taking this time around with these unidentified objects. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): I would prefer to be trigger happy than to be permissive. But we're going to have to see whether or not this is just the administration trying to change headlines. But what I think this shows, which is probably more important for our policy discussion here is that we really have to declare that we're going to defend our airspace and then we need to invest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: But still so many questions for this administration about what exactly this series of unidentified objects are. We have really seen this heightened alert from the administration over the course of the past three days.

REID: Arlette Saenz, thank you.

And for President Biden these objects are becoming not just an issue for national security but also for the president's political future. CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein joins us now.

Ron, how big of a concern are these objects for President Biden just in purely political terms?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You know every time a president faces a national security challenge, I mean, it's really equal part risk and opportunity. The political strategist will tell you that the absolute baseline that people expect of their president is that the president seems to be in control of events rather than events controlling him. Jimmy Carter got on the wrong side of that equation and really cost him against Ronald Reagan.

And there is no better opportunity, Paula, for a president to demonstrate command than in a national security challenge of any kind. The catch is you actually have to show that you are in fact in control and I think the president is still on the right side of that equation but there, you know, there comes a point where that the prevalence of these kinds of incidents are going to raise sharper questions.

REID: At the State of the Union, Biden didn't use the word balloon but he did say this. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Make no mistake about it. As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty we will act to protect our country, and we did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Was that enough? Should he has said more?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, I mean, think there are two separate issues here, right? One is whether the president is projecting enough strength, and I think, you know, as General Clark among the many important points he made was we don't know whether this is something whose pace has just picked up recently or it was always happening and we never saw it. So there's one question about kind of, is the president reacting strongly enough? The other is about our relations with China, right? I mean, we're talking about domestic politics but the kind of international relation we mentioned here is really important.

And we've been living through a decade in which the center of gravity in each party, in both parties, have been moving toward greater confrontation with China. We're a long way from the era of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who largely thought that we could entice China into being more of a responsible global citizen by integrating them into international institutions.

Now Biden, you know, not as belligerently as Trump but certainly indirection on a broad range of issues including, you know, even industrial policy and moving supply chains, increasing American reliance, ability to produce what it needs, and moving supply chains out of China, there is a bipartisan trend toward greater confrontation with China. And if in fact these are all a series of provocations from China that is only going to cement that in a way that I suspect we'd be hearing quite a bit more from President Biden going forward.

REID: Well, of course China or Russia, they know exactly how something like this would play out in this hyper partisan environment, to look concerned when a national security event becomes so politicized but it does become almost easier for the U.S. to be baited into doing something that might make -- not so much geopolitical sense.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, yes, I mean, look, Biden is -- you know, he is confident enough in his foreign policy judgment that for rightly or wrongly that I don't think he is really going to be baited. I mean, clearly they've changed the pace at which they are responding, as others have noted. I mean, the last three incidents are very different than the first one. But I think he feels confident after, you know, 50 years in Washington.

You know, he's not going to be listening to people like us. I mean, I think he is -- you know, he does, I think, have a great deal of confidence in his ability to modulate and deal with this. But I do think, you know, go back to the original point, I actually think that governments that are operating close systems like Russia or China where there is domestic dissent often had a very skewed vision of how their actions are going to be perceived around the world.

[16:25:07]

I mean, they are just not used to getting much pushback or questioning on the things they do so it is entirely possible that the level of outrage across the political spectrum in the U.S. about the balloon was something that may have surprised them. They're usually not that good in gauging public opinion when you don't have to worry about it ever in your domestic context.

REID: Ron Brownstein, thank you so much.

And we'll continue to follow all the developments with this breaking news. As sources say the U.S. Military has shot down a new high- altitude object over Lake Huron. But next several more people are pulled from the rubble in Turkey more 160 hours since the massive earthquake first struck.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:30:20]

REID: Much more in the latest from Lake Huron, as sources say the U.S. military has shot down a third high-altitude object in as many days.

But first, some incredible rescues are happening in southern Turkey. More than six days after a devastating earthquake struck there and Syria. Two more people, a teenage girl and an older woman were pulled from the rubble after being trapped under piles of debris for more than 162 hours. Another woman shown here was found alive and rescued after 159 hours buried in the wreckage. And this 10-year-old girl was also rescued today. She spent more than 147 hours under debris.

But for every story of survival, there was also grief. The death toll now tops 34,000 across Turkey and Syria, and it is expected to rise as search and rescue efforts shift to recovery.

CNN's Nada Bashir joins us now from Istanbul Turkey. Nada, what is the latest on the search and rescue efforts?

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Well, look, those efforts are certainly continuing. And there is still some semblance of hope that we could still find survivors beneath the rubble. That certainly has been the case of over the course of the weekend, when we have seen as remarkable rescues taking place that people found alive almost a week since the earthquake struck Turkey, parts of the southeast of the country and, of course, northwest Syria.

But as you mentioned there that window for finding survivors is closing pretty quickly. And it is really now shifting to recovery effort. This has been a real international response. We've seen teams from across the globe arriving in Turkey to support that effort to rescue survivors, including one team that was traveled all the way from Los Angeles over the weekend rescuing a mother and her 18-year- old son.

Of course, the real concern now is also focusing on those impacted by the quake left behind their lives completely destroyed, of course, in that aid effort that needs to come in for those most vulnerable, particularly in northwestern Syria.

Now, we have seen that international aid being funneled across Turkey, a huge outpouring of support. But it did take a while for the aid to get across the border from Turkey from the rebel -- how are crossing into the rebel-held territories of northwestern Syria. That aid is now coming to -- is now starting to come through, but a message that we're hearing from aid workers in Syria like this is simply too little too late. And really, what we're hearing from people in Turkey and in Syria is a sense of frustration, a sense of anger and our questions around accountability. Now, the Turkish government says it is carrying out an investigation into questions of construction negligence in parts of the South East.

More than 200 public prosecutors have been appointed to oversee that investigation. And already, more than hundred people have been identified as potential suspects in connection with allegations of negligence and arrests have already been carried out, as well as travel bans placed on some suspected individuals.

The president here in Turkey has been clear and firm. In his response, he has said that those held responsible will be held accountable for the devastation that we've seen. But some are also now beginning to question whether or not more could have been done by the Turkish Government to prepare for a catastrophe of this scale, as well as what the more could have been done to ensure that aid was transferred quicker to those most in need.

Already hearing people say that they didn't receive the help that they needed once their families were found beneath the rubble. So real sense of concern here, but as you said there, we are still seeing those recoveries and for some, that is the only hope that they need at this stage. Paula.

REID: Nada Bashir, thank you.

And Frank Infante joins us now. He's with the U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team. Frank, it is, of course, been more than six days since the earthquake hit. How are you still seeing rescues? How much longer can really efforts focus on rescues versus recovery?

FRANK INFANTE, INFORMATION OFFICER, USAID DISASTER ASSISTANCE RESPONSE TEAM: I think as long as there's hope there and the government would like our assistance in this life-saving mission, as USAID.

Just yesterday, USAID search and rescue team assisted the local first responders and pulling out a couple more victims which in turn gave us hope that there's still the possibility to make some viable rescues here in Adiyaman.

REID: And what our operations like on the ground right now? Could you walk us through the process your crews are going through?

[16:35:01]

INFANTE: Well, USAID search and rescue has a couple of responsibilities. We're coordinating the city of Adiyaman with the local government to assist them in better using the resources that are here in town, from national -- international arenas, and using them in areas where they could be more effective, including our search and rescue team.

We're also assisting with our equipment and our skills to start with the search and rescue with our canines are tumbling [ph] and our breaking and breaching capabilities around the clock. We have the ability to work 24 hours a day in these type of conditions. And in this weather at 27 degrees Fahrenheit here.

REID: On those conditions 24 hours a day, that must be incredibly emotionally draining work. How are your crews holding up?

INFANTE: You know what, of course, physically, emotionally, they're probably tired. But just firstly speaking to them, every time there's still a victim pulled out whether they assisted or whether they heard in the city, it gives them a lot of hope. And in turn, just gives them more motivation to continue in this rescue effort.

REID: And humanitarian aid is flooding into Turkey, but it is of course much more difficult to get aid into Syria. What in your assessment is most needed right now?

INFANTE: You know what, USAID is a large, large piece of this. And we're just a small piece, the search and rescue component, focusing on life saving missions here in Adiyaman.

And also, the coordination of the city. I wouldn't be able to answer to those questions. But what I do know is that our focus, our motivation, and our targets to help the citizens here is continuing day after day until for local government decides we're no longer [technical difficulties]

REID: Frank Infante, thank you.

INFANTE: Thank you.

REID: And you too can make a difference. To learn how you can help victims of the earthquake, go to cnn.com/impact. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:40:34]

REID: For the third straight day, sources tells CNN the U.S. military has shot down a high-altitude object, this one, over Lake Huron. Stay with us for the very latest details on that.

But today is also, of course, Super Bowl Sunday and kickoff is just a few short hours away. The Philadelphia Eagles will face off against the Kansas City Chiefs in a history making matchup that will crown this year's Super Bowl champion.

CNN's Coy Wire is live in Glendale, Arizona for us. Coy, which team has the advantage tonight?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: No, you tell me. I can't decide. Happy Super Bowl Sunday to you, Paula. This is one of the most evenly matched Super Bowls ever. Only four other Super Bowls have had spreads fewer than two points. The Chiefs are slight underdogs in this game.

Now this game represents the takeover, Paula. Tom Brady retiring, it's no longer his league. This is Patrick Mahomes' league now. In five seasons, as a starter for the Chiefs, he has five Pro Bowls, two league MVPs, and he's taken the Chiefs to three in the last four Super Bowls. His 10 playoff wins are as many or more than 11 entire franchises. And a win today would tie him with Aaron Rodgers already at just 27 years old.

He's won one Super Bowl, last another, she has plenty of big game experience. Here's what he told us the other day about the game's biggest stage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK MAHOMES, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS QUARTERBACK: You play and you work -- you work your tail off to be in this game and to play on the -- on the world stage, and you dream about it as a little kid when you're watching Super Bowl parties and -- with your dad and your mom and everybody like that. And so to be -- to be able to play in this game is truly special and you appreciate every single time and I'm excited to step back on that field and get to go after my teammates one last time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: All right. Mahomes is going to try to break the so-called MVP curse, Paula. The last nine MVPs to play in the Super Bowl that season our 0 and 9, but he's going to have to break it against one of the fiercest defenses in the NFL.

And the best at attacking the quarterback, the Eagles, were second in the league in sacks last season. But this season, they led the league with 70. Here's what two of their stars told me about their incredible turnaround this year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRANDON GRHAM, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES DEFENSIVE END: I feel like this year has been a lot of fun. You know, the way we work every day. We don't have to really get too many guys to get going. It's just more about you see one, you don't want to look bad. I mean, there's a lot of -- it's like a friendly competition.

FLETCHER COX, PHILADELPIA EAGLES DEFENSIVE TACKLE: The piece that we had brought production to the team and brought production to the defensive line and just working towards it. You know, obviously, that you -- when you -- when you see that, you hear about being at the bottom of league and set you and do something about it, and I think we did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Almost game time, Paula, whether you're tuning in for the Chiefs, Eagles or for Rihanna performing for the first time in seven years headlining the halftime show, it should be certainly quite the show here in Glendale today.

REID: Coy Wire, thank you. And nothing is immune from inflation, not even love. Valentine's Day is right around the corner and Americans can expect to spend nearly $26 billion to express their love this year. That's according to a survey from the National Retail Federation. On average, most people said they plan to spend around $192. That's up from $175 last year.

CNN's Mike Valerio is at the Los Angeles flower market. All right. Mike, what are you seeing there?

MIKE VALERIO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paul, good afternoon. You know what better way to talk about the flower market and Valentine's Day spending at large seem to be in the middle of the flower district here in Downtown Los Angeles.

[16:45:05]

So, you know, Paula, you're exactly right, we were speaking with Oscar, the owner of O&J flowers to my left. And he was saying that inflation is so difficult for him. He's hoping that even though the sidewalks are pretty packed at this hour, he needs more customers to break even, and really make an impact for his business this Valentine's Day.

But as promised, Paula, when we were talking before the show, this -- we're sending this to you guys, Team Paula and Team CNN D.C. from Team CNN L.A. This is what florists are doing to stand out in part, around 100 or 110 roses, selling for $500.

But talking about the larger economics here, as you mentioned, we're expecting around $26 billion, just a little bit south of that for Valentine's Day spending. This year, it was just South of $24 billion last year, but we also have weather concerns that are pushing prices higher.

Listen to what we heard about that just a few hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK CHATOFF, PRESIDENT, CALIFORNIA FLOWER MALL: There's always going to be a supply breakdown due to weather logistics. Columbia has some problems with their weather, heavy rains. So that's impacting the supply of the roses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIO: So we wanted to show you inside. This is inside Oscar's flower shop. O&J flowers here on San Pedro Street. He's opening, Paula, 24 hours starting tomorrow, employing 10 people. They've been working 14-hour days, but again, inflation here so tough. You're talking about labor, fuel, they're hoping that this will be a spectacular Valentine's Day because things pretty tough in this economy for them, Paula.

REID: All right. Mike Valerio, thank you so much. I look for those flowers that share an office with Evan Perez. I think they're going to look great in our office in the coming days. Thank you for that report.

And ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM, much more on the latest national security development, a fourth object shot down over Lake Huron. What's more than that, ahead.

And Utah's Great Salt Lake is drying up due to drought, and scientists are worried what's leftover could poison the lungs of more than two and a half million people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:50:38]

REID: We continue to follow breaking news this afternoon as a U.S. fighter jet shoots down a high altitude object after -- over at Lake Huron. This is the third time it's happened in as many days. We'll have much more on that in just a few minutes.

But first, a potential environmental catastrophe unfolding in slow motion in Utah. The Great Salt Lake is evaporating before our eyes. Scientists say it may disappear altogether in five years, and may just be a preview of what's to come around the world.

CNN chief climate correspondent, Bill Weir, has a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: This is what is left of the Great Salt Lake. It hit record lows in recent months, exposing around 800 square miles of lake bed. But unchecked water use and climate change aren't just threatening the birds and sail boaters.

And here are the western mega drought threatens a lot more than just snow sports, agriculture, and industry. Because this lake bed holds centuries of toxic runoff, mercury, selenium, arsenic, some of it natural, some of it manmade mining waste. But if it turns to dust and adds to some of the worst air pollution in the country, this is a threat to the lungs of over two and a half million people.

BONNIE BAXTER, DIRECTOR, SALT LAKE INSTITUTE, WESTMINSTER COLLEGE: We've done this experiment in history before. We know about dust storms, we know about particulate pollution. We know about heavy metals and how they're bad for humans. This is an ecological disaster that will become a human health disaster.

WEIR: Bonnie Baxter is among the scientists who recently warned that the Great Salt Lake, as we know it, could be gone and five years. Shriveled in the fingers of lifeless water before becoming the great toxic dust bowl.

BAXTER: You can kind of see a person standing out there, like, the water would have been above their head just a few years ago.

WEIR: This is what is known as a terminal lake with no rivers to take minerals to the sea. So they build up over time, just like Owens Lake in California, after developers notoriously drained it a century ago to build Los Angeles. It both inspired the movie Chinatown and forced Californians to spend in the billions to control the toxic dust that remains a threat 100 years later.

BAXTER: This lake is 12 to 15 times bigger than Owens Lake. It's right next to a metropolitan center, which that lake was not. So there are people who will breathe this dust immediately. And we're really, really concerned about that happening here. So we have done that experiment. We shouldn't do it again.

BRIAN STEED, LAWSON INSTITUTE FOR LAND, WATER AND AIR, UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY: It was human choices that led to that catastrophic event, right? We're looking at the Great Salt Lake in a position right now as to where we can avoid that catastrophe, where we don't have to spend those billions of dollars in remediation in the future if we make choices today.

WEIR: Brian Steed and John Lin are from rival Utah universities, one with a background in state government, the other an atmospheric scientist.

JOHN LIN, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH'S DEPARTMENT OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES: The thing is, it's bipartisan, right? That's why we all want clean air.

WEIR: Together, they're part of the newly formed Great Salt Lake Strike Team out to convince everyone that every drop counts.

STEED: For a long time, I don't think that people were sufficiently talking for the lake. Now, I think that we have a lot of people interested, the governor of the state, the legislature, who is all very interested in coming up with different scenarios and different solutions so that we don't end up with that catastrophic outcome.

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WEIR: It seems like the path of least resistance is for the state to pay farmers for their water rights, is that going to happen?

STEED: I don't know. It remains to be seen. I mean, I think there's a lot of things that we could do that go to that extreme.

WEIR: Among the signs of change, when U.S. magnesium wanted to extend canals into the lake, the state said no. And last year, the legislature finally began revising a water laws written in the days of the Wild West.

BAXTER: Sometimes I feel like we take a step forward and sometimes we take a step back, but in general, all those pieces of water legislation that passed in 2022 were bipartisan and unanimous, like, where does that happen anymore?

WEIR: Fingers crossed it keeps happening, because the only thing that can keep the Salt Lake great is lots of snow and even more cooperation.

(END VIDEOTAPE) REID: That was CNN chief climate correspondent, Bill Weir.

And much more on our breaking news is ahead, as sources say the U.S. military has shot down another high-altitude object. We're covering the story from every angle. Stay with us.

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