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U.S. Military Shoots Down Unidentified Object Over Lake Huron; Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) Is Interviewed About The Unidentified Object That Was Shot Down By U.S. Military; Trump Team Hands Over Materials To DOJ; China Using AI For Propaganda; New Details From Pentagon On The Unidentified Object; Interview With Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI). Aired 5-6p ET
Aired February 12, 2023 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
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PAULA REID, CNN HOST: I'm Paula Reid. Jim Acosta has the day off. You are in the "CNN Newsroom." 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 would be the fourth object brought down by U.S. fighter jets in the past nine days. CNN's Kylie Atwood is at the State Department. Kylie, what are you learning?
KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right, Paula. And the third object brought down in just the last three days. Of course, we're learning that this high-altitude object was traveling and shot down over Lake Huron, which is north of Michigan in between, you know, Michigan and Canada, right up there. That is according to a U.S. official and a congressional source briefed on the matter.
It appears that members of Congress from Michigan are learning more about this in conversations with the Pentagon today. I want to read to you what Congresswoman Slotkin tweeted just in the last few hours or so, saying, quote, "The object has been downed by pilots from the U.S. Air Force and National Guard. Great work by all who carried out this mission, both in the air and back at headquarters. We're all interested in exactly what this object was and its purpose."
We're also hearing from other members of Congress from Michigan, Congressman Bergman saying that he is appreciative of what he's calling the decisive action of the fighter pilots here. So, there's a lot more to learn about, you know, just what exactly this object was. I think Arlette, our colleague, is getting some more colleagues from her sources on that.
But it's notable that this was actually, you know, something that the United States was able to track, potentially in part because NORAD over the last week adjusted its controls to better detect slow-moving objects at high altitudes. So, what they were able to do is, you know, put into place these FAA temporary flight restrictions into spaces where they were seeing potentially an object come through. The question remains an open one, as to if there are more objects
coming into U.S. air space now or if these adjustments are just allowing them to detect them at a higher rate. Paula?
REID: Kylie Atwood, thank you.
And CNN's Paula Newton joins us now. Paula, what are the Canadian officials saying about this?
PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, suffice it to say that Canadian officials obviously, but also keeping a close eye on any high-altitude objects, as you say, that NORAD has been surveilling. I mean, look, Lake Huron basically cuts across both the U.S. and Canadian territories. And for that reason, leaders on both sides, both President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would have been kept informed with what's going on with this object.
Now, when I asked Canadian officials, they referred me to NORAD, which was responsible for this operation. But defense officials in Canada promised to get back to us with more information about what exactly went on there. I will note that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is en route to Yukon. A complete coincidence, Paula, in terms of him being there and the day after Canada ordered that high altitude object to be shot down in Yukon.
What's interesting here thought, was when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke this morning before that trip, he did say that they felt that this was a threat to civil aviation, and that's why he thought that the object had to come down as soon as possible. Unlike those objects that they perhaps had been surveilling for days.
The other thing that was interesting here was that that object over Yukon, they had had been surveilling it for at least a day before they actually shot it down. What will be interesting here, Paula, is to note exactly when they detected this object. Was it also coming through that northern path from Canada or did it float in from somewhere else over the Great Lakes, perhaps.
Still, a lot of questions. Again, Canadian officials promise to get back to us, but right now they are deferring questions to NORAD, which they say took the lead on this operation after getting the order from U.S. President Joe Biden.
REID: So many questions. Paula Newton, thank you. And I want to bring in Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale. Congressman, earlier today, you dismissed the official claim that air space was shut down over your state last night due to a so-called radar anomaly. You said that, in fact, there was an object. So, what is your reaction to this most recent shoot down, just a short time ago.
REP. MATT ROSENDALE (R-MT): Thanks so much, Paula. It's disturbing. It's troubling. I was in contact with DOD yesterday for several hours through the evening.
[17:04:56] And I was assured by them that once they had some daylight where they could get eyes on the object, they were going to get in touch with me and let me know what was going on. When we experienced a 12-hour gap with no information whatsoever, I started reaching out again. And at that point, I was again told there is some type of an object and they are trying to find out just where it is and what they're going to do.
Another six hours went by. And that's when I started making sure that all of my staff was scanning twitter feeds and news broadcasts to find out what was going on, because quite frankly, DOD was not bringing information forward fast enough for me to be able to report back to the citizens across Montana.
We have 140 ICBMS located in Montana. We have mounts from air force bases. This is very sensitive equipment and facilities and we are not being given good, accurate, timely information from the Department of Defense, and I have shared my displeasure with them. You know, we're talking about different-sized devices, Paula.
The first balloon was a Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic. And at that time, I started questioning, when did it enter our air space? How long did they know about it? How long did they keep this information away from the American public? Why wasn't it brought down earlier in such a fashion that we could have acquired all of the equipment and evaluated it to find out what they had been collecting and transmitting back to China?
And now, it doesn't give me much safe feelings knowing that these devices are just smaller. They're more difficult to track, but they're still accumulating data. And I'm very concerned with the cumulative effect of the data that is being collected. Whether that's cellular activity, whether that's information about our civilian infrastructure, whether that is information about our military infrastructure and our defense systems. I need some answers. And the American people need answers.
REID: And once you get more information, of course, you may be able to propose some sort of solution. But as of right now, what would you suggest doing differently?
ROSENDALE: Well, I think that we need to do is make sure that these devices are not allowed to enter the -- across the land area of the United States of America. And we would be better served to have them removed, brought down out of the sky if we could keep them intact and get the equipment, great.
But if not, we are still better served making sure that they do not enter across our land areas so that they could collect more data on what we were doing. Again, whether that's cellular or civilian infrastructure or military infrastructure.
REID: Do we have the current capability to retrieve them intact?
ROSENDALE: It depends on what method they are brought down with, Paula. That's just exactly the question. And these are questions that I have been asking for over a week now, to find out what is the most effective way to keep these devices from collecting information about the United States of America and yet find out what our adversaries are trying to do to us.
REID: Are you willing to work in a bipartisan way to address these objects?
ROSENDALE: Most definitely. And I would certainly hope that my colleagues across the aisle would embrace a bipartisan effort to keep the Chinese Communist Party from collecting information about our country.
REID: And you've said in response to these shoot downs the national security is your top priority. Do you believe national security is properly being protected with these more swift decisions to shoot down these objects?
ROSENDALE: I think that we're heading in the right direction, but I also believe that this is a clear demonstration of the Chinese Communist Party's desire to poke, to prod, to see just how far they can push the United States of America under the Biden administration. And listen, Paula, we're not just experiencing an invasion from the air, we're experiencing an invasion on the southern border, as well.
And when you have a million people a year that are coming across the southern border, completely undetected and not having any encounters with law enforcement, we don't know who those folks are either. So, we had better start stepping up our national security coverage or we're going to have major problems.
REID: And congressman, are you concerned at all, though, that China could be using some of these devices or some of our other adversaries could be using these devices to bait the U.S. into some sort of conflict, especially if they move too quickly?
ROSENDALE: No, that I'm not concerned with. I think they are prodding to see just how far we will allow them to penetrate into our country and how long we will allow them to collect data about our country.
REID: Congressman Matt Rosendale, thank you so much for joining us.
ROSENDALE: Thank you, Paula.
REID: And we continue to follow this breaking news, as sources tell CNN that a fighter jet has shot down a high-altitude object near Lake Huron. We have much more ahead here in the "CNN Newsroom."
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REID: The latest now in our breaking news. The U.S. military has shot down another high-altitude object. This time near Lake Huron. This would be the third object brought down in as many days. Let's go now to CNN's Arlette Saenz at the White House. Arlette, you have new details about this object. What are you learning? ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Paula. A senior
administration official providing some new details to myself and Natasha Bertrand and Phil Mattingly, detailing what exactly this unidentified object looked like. Now, it was flying at about 20,000 feet when it was shot down. It had been flying over part of Michigan's upper peninsula and then was nearing Lake Huron when ultimately it was taken down by fighter aircraft.
And what this senior administration official described is that it had an octagonal shape and there were strings hanging from it, but with no discernible payload. Another source who was briefed on the matter also shared that description.
[17:14:58]
And while the U.S. has said that they can't -- haven't determine whether there was any intelligence collection capabilities to this object, they are simply not ruling that out at this moment. Now, this object was first detected by NORAD and NorthCom just last night. There were some radar contacts that was made and the U.S. sent some fighter aircraft to try to take a look and see if there were anything out there.
Last night, they did not see an object and ultimately believed that it was an anomaly, a radar anomaly. But then today, they re-acquired that radar contact and found this object that was going from Wisconsin over into Michigan.
Now, there were concerns about the height of this aircraft. It was flying at 20,000 feet. And also, it's path. So there have been concerns about what it might mean for civilian aircraft. But officials say that it did not pose any imminent threat to people on the ground. But ultimately, President Biden followed the advice of his military leaders and ordered that this unidentified object be shot down. So that is what transpired today.
But just a step back, this is just the latest in a series of remarkable events over the course of the last eight days. This is the fourth time that the U.S. has shot down an aerial object in North American air space, starting with that Chinese spy balloon, which traversed across the country for days and was ultimately jut down off the Carolina coast.
Now, there is this trio of unidentified objects with very few descriptors, and big questions about where exactly they came from and who they belong to. The two objects that were shot down on Friday and then Saturday, we still have very limited details in what exactly these objects contained and looked like.
Officials here have said that they were smaller than that Chinese spy balloon that was shot down off the waters of the east coast. But certainly, so many questions for this administration as we have just seen, unidentified object after unidentified object entering U.S. air space and there's questions about where they came from and what exactly it all means.
REID: So many questions. Arlette Saenz, thank you.
And let's talk more about this with CNN military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton and CNN's national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem. All right, Colonel, thank you for being with us. What is your reaction to this?
CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, this is really interesting and Arlette's reporting has really piqued my interest because what you're seeing here is something that we -- I don't think we've seen before, an octagonal object. So, I don't know if that's a payload or if that's actually the balloon or the propulsion system or, you know, something else like that. So, we don't have very many details, but these are the kinds of questions that we definitely have to be asking.
And then the other thing that I thought was interesting from this octagonal object, we have strings coming out, strings could be all kinds of things, but I'm looking at the possibility of those strings being an antenna of one type another either for receiving or transmitting information. So, that's the kind of stuff that we have to analyze.
We have to have the DOD and other forensic specialists analyze this and really take a look at what this system actually is, how it connects with the other systems that were shot down earlier if it does connect at all. Those are the kind of questions that I have right now.
I also note one other thing, if I may. And that's the low -- the relatively low altitude that this thing was flying at. 20,000 feet is absolutely within the realm of commercial aircraft and that's extremely dangerous from a commercial aviation perspective. And the skies over Michigan are fairly well populated. So, it's definitely something that needed to be taken care of.
REID: And Juliette, I want to get your reaction to this. Another day, another shoot down of a so-called object.
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, let's -- I want to put this in the categories of what we know and what we don't know. So, what we know is that since the Chinese balloon incident a week ago and learning of other infiltrations by the Chinese of the balloon in years past, essentially NORAD, NorthCom and other agencies essentially opened up the aperture of what they were looking for.
So, they are getting lots of positives that they did not get before. Most of that is going to be known (inaudible) airplanes, whatever it may be, but there are now going to be lots more things that sort of raise the level of concern. So that's the first thing we know. These positives were anticipated, more positives.
What we can't answer now is, is this sort of bigger aperture picking up lots of stuff that has essentially been forgiven, sort of, you know, around in the skies, whatever else it is, because it didn't pose a threat.
[17:20:00] Or is it part of something organized for whatever surveillance. I do want -- so we don't know. And I would just want to pick up on what the congressman who was on before us, to speculate about China and all of these incidents is just -- I'm sorry, it is just not right right now. We do not know what these objects are. They are -- two were described as VW-sized, one is now octangle (ph). We don't know if there are balloons attached to them.
So, we need to just sort of understand what's going on. There's a wider lens of surveillance that is picking up things. We don't quite know what they are. And our tolerance for it after what happened with China is lower. We're going to shoot it down if it is unmanned, if it is hurting commercial or a threat to commercial aviation.
And if shooting it down will not harm Americans in the homeland. That is essentially what's going on. The speculation is really premature at this stage.
REID: And Colonel, you talked a little bit about civilian air space. Clearly, these could potentially pose a threat to civilian aviation. Is there any way to really secure the skies against these kinds of objects?
LEIGHTON: Well, it's certainly a challenge, Paula. And, you know, we look at how we've secured the skies in the past, we sometimes use draconian measures such as shutting things down in the wake of 9/11, for example, until we had a reasonable handle on what was flying in our air space.
Certainly, I don't advocate anything like that at this particular point in time. The danger to commercial aviation is I would say minimal at this point, but it is something that has to be taken into account. And airmen of all types, civilian as well as military have to be on the lookout for unusual objects right now.
I think we have a heightened awareness on the part of everybody. It becomes really important. But having an ironclad, you know, control mechanism for space, that's practically an impossibility. But we can certainly do a better job knowing what's in the air, and I think, NORAD has certainly picked up the baton at this point in time, a little bit late, but still better late than never.
REID: It does seem a little slow, but they're on it now. All right, Juliette and Colonel, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.
LEIGHTON: You bet.
REID: And stay with CNN for the latest on this breaking news. But coming up, this week, for the legal team representing former President Trump, it was a busy one. They turned over a laptop and additional classified records to the Justice Department. I'll talk to one of former President Trump's attorneys, next.
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[17:25:00] REID: We continue to follow breaking news this afternoon. A U.S. fighter jet has shot down a high-altitude object near 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 the Justice Department's investigation into former President Trump's handling of documents appears to be far from over.
Just this week, the Trump legal team turned over even more materials with classified markings along with a laptop. They also handed over an empty folder marked "Classified Evening Briefing." And joining us now is one of former President Trump's attorneys, Tim Parlatore. All right, to be clear, the former president has a lot of legal issues, but you specifically represent him into the special counsel's investigations into January 6th and Mar-a-Lago.
TIM PARLATORE, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: Right. Yes.
REID: As you just heard, CNN and other outlets reporting that you handed over additional materials, pages with classified markings, a laptop and a thumb drive over to investigators. Tim, Trump has been out of office for two years. Why do classified materials keep showing up?
PARLATORE: You know, what has happened here that you've seen here and also in the Biden and Pence investigations is that the White House does not have proper procedures for handling classified information. And these documents, when they get backed up and sent out when people leave office, they do keep showing up, if you will.
We conducted a search back in December, which is where we found these documents. And we turned them over immediately. These were not turned over last week, although, you know, the DOJ leaked it last week. This was turned over back in December. And so, we have gone through, we've tried to work with the DOJ. We've tried to do searches of all of the relevant places. And anytime we've found anything, we've immediately turned it over.
REID: And as we understand it, the laptop that was handed over, it had scanned copies of some of the pages that were handed over. We've learned that this the laptop belonged to an aide from the Save America PAC. So, why would someone from a PAC have access to classified materials?
PARLATORE: She was working as an aide to the president. And this is a box that had all of his daily schedules from his time in office. And she scanned all of those as part of, you know, being available for future speeches or biographies or things like that. And after we did the search in December and we found that within this box of thousands that there were a couple of pages that had a little marking at the bottom, which we turned over.
After that, we found out that she had scanned the box so that it would be digitized. She had no idea that there were any classification markings on anything. And as soon as we found out about that, we called up DOJ to let them know. And immediately provided them access to it. REID: Now, you also turned over an empty folder marked "classified" to
investigators. Where was this folder and why was it turned over?
PARLATORE: The folder is kind of one of the more humorous aspects of this whole thing. This is not a classified folder.
[17:30:00]
This is a folder that when my team went through and searched and they wrote up their report, which we turned over to DOJ, they saw, it's a -- it's a folder -- a Manila folder that says "Classified Evening Summary" on it. And it was in the president's bedroom. He has one of those landline telephones next to his bed and it has a blue light on it and it keeps him up at night.
So, he took the Manila folder and put it over it so it would keep the light down so he could sleep at night. And it's just this folder, it says, "Classified Evening Summary" on it. It is not a classification marking. It's not anything that is controlled in any way. There's nothing illegal about it. There's nothing in it. And when DOJ found out about it, they went crazy. And they actually gave me a subpoena to say, give us over this empty folder that means nothing.
REID: How did they find out about a folder on his bed table?
PARLATORE: We put it in our report. When we did all of our searches, we wrote up reports on everywhere we searched, everywhere we looked, anything we found, where we found it. And we gave that to them because everything that we've done as a part of that search has been in the spirit of full cooperation and compliance.
And when they read that and they saw, oh, there is this folder here that is so far outside of the scope of the subpoena or anything else, they demanded it back. And so now the president has to find a different way to get the blue light out of his eyes.
REID: I'm sure he has other options, but correct me if I'm wrong. There's also a similar folder on display at the Trump Tower bar.
PARLATORE: Yeah.
REID: He is under criminal investigation for potentially mishandling classified materials. Doesn't the use of these folders suggest somewhat of a flippant attitude towards classified materials?
PARLATORE: Not at all. Not at all. These are folders that, you know, he was given during his time in office. He didn't keep the contents of the folder, but the folder itself was interesting, so he did keep a copy, you know, some of the folders, he put one on display at the 45 Bar. He put one on his phone down in Mar-a-Lago.
When we went through the boxes at the National Archives, we found a few more of them there. This is -- it's a -- it's essentially a piece of stationary. It doesn't actually contain anything controlled or anything really that's a problem. REID: Well, he was obviously running for president again. You keep
uncovering these classified documents, outside of the settings in which they belong. What do you say to people who believe that he shouldn't be trusted with the nation's secrets?
PARLATORE: Nothing that we have found has any implications on him personally. Everything that we have found has been consistent with what I've been saying from the beginning, which is, the White House, across administrations, their handling of classified documents is not the same as how the intelligence agencies handle it or the military handles it.
And so, documents are not controlled in the White House, across administrations. When people leave the White House and GSA packs everything up, they get mixed in, as we've seen with President Trump, with President Biden, with Vice President Pence. And really, you know, what I say here is, President Trump, this doesn't have anything to do with him.
This has to do with White House procedures, which is one of the reasons why I say DOJ should get out of this and they should instead do a review of what the procedures are in the White House and then legislate a change on how future White House administrations handle documents because that would solve the problem.
REID: One big difference between your client and the other two folks that you mentioned is the fact that once this issue was raised, your client did not automatically make an effort to turn over everything. It's taken a while; things are still being handed over. And it's not just potentially mishandling classified information. Your client is also under investigation for possible obstruction.
PARLATORE: I would disagree with that because --
REID: That he's under investigation?
PARLATORE: No, not that. But that he didn't try to cooperate. From the beginning, he has tried to cooperate. In fact, he had a meeting with the -- with the members of DOJ where he said, if there's anything else you need, let us know.
DOJ has taken a position of, you know, really an adversarial position on this, where as much as we want to cooperate with them, they would rather make this into an adversarial fight and try to make it into a criminal case.
Had they handled it appropriately from the beginning, agreed to work with us, work towards making sure that we just get the documents and everything is, you know, put back into its place, this all would have been avoided. A lot of what you have here is an appearance of noncompliance, which is created by DOJ in the matter in which they have handled this.
REID: Are you still searching for documents, classified -- with classified markings? PARLATORE: Not at this time, no. We have completed our searches. We
have given up our full reports to DOJ. They've seen everything. This latest leak from this past week is really from stuff that happened back in December.
REID: And has the special counsel expressed any interest in speaking with your client?
PARLATORE: Not to me.
[17:35:02]
REID: If he did, if Jack Smith is interested in asking your client questions, would you allow him to do that?
PARLATORE: I would certainly consider it, but I would like to talk to Jack Smith himself first.
REID: You haven't talked to Jack Smith yet?
PARLATORE: No, but I would like to.
REID: Okay. Former Vice President Mike Pence, as you know, was recently subpoenaed in the January 6th investigation. Do you expect to assert privilege to block some of that testimony?
PARLATORE: So, as with any witness that goes before the grand jury, we have been instructing them to preserve the privilege. So, any question that they're asked that doesn't call for a privileged answer, they should answer. Any question that they're asked that calls for something that is protected by privilege either executive, attorney/client or otherwise, they should assert that privilege at that time.
You know, they don't give a certain list of questions ahead of time. They assert the privilege and then after they're done testifying, then it's up to DOJ to decide whether they want to file a motion to compel or not. And so, really, all we know is they want to bring people in and if they're not going to give us a list of questions so that we can figure it out exactly, we tell them, okay, assert privilege to everything, because the reality is, you don't want to create a precedent where DOJ can just run roughshod over the privilege because it's a new administration. So, we instruct them, they assert, and then DOJ decides whether they want to file a motion to compel.
REID: So, it sounds like you will likely assert privilege over the Mike Pence testimony?
PARLATORE: Every witness that goes into the grand jury that has information that's potentially privileged, we tell them to assert the privilege.
REID: And that would also apply to Robert O'Brien, the former national security adviser?
PARLATORE: Every witness that goes in. REID: And then as you saw this week, one additional classified
document was found during a search of former Vice President Mike Pence's house. Do you think a special counsel should be appointed to look into his case?
PARLATORE: I don't. I don't think that there should be special counsels appointed to look at any classified document cases. I think that is the business the DOJ needs to be put on the bench for. And instead, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence should get into it and they should do an administrative classified document spillage investigation.
They should provide, you know, to all former residents of the White House. They should provide them all amnesty, that way they can get full cooperation from everybody and figure out really what is going on with the White House document handling procedures, so they can fix it.
When you have DOJ go into these things, they are automatically going in with all the criminal processes and trying to threaten people to go to jail over something that really is a procedural failure and an institutional procedural failure that has nothing to do with Mike Pence, Donald Trump, or quite frankly, Joe Biden.
REID: All right. We have to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Clearly, a lot to talk about.
PARLATORE: Thank you for having me.
REID: All right. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. We continue to follow the breaking news as sources tell CNN the U.S. military has shot down a high-altitude object near Lake Huron. Stay with us for the very latest.
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[17:40:00]
REID: For the third straight day, sources tell CNN the U.S. military has shot down a high-altitude object. This one near Lake Huron. Stay with us for the very latest on that.
And as more companies look to exploit the possibility of artificial intelligence, China is using that technology for an almost unbelievable program of propaganda. CNN's Selina Wang reports from Beijing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNKNOWN: Hello, everyone. This is Wolf News. I'm Alex.
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On first glance, these look like news anchors.
UNKNOWN: And the top leaders of China --
WANG (voice-over): On second glance, you might notice something uncanny.
UNKKNOWN: The two heads of state exchanged --
WANG (voice-over): And how their voices don't align with their mouth movements. That's because they aren't real people. They're deep fake avatars made with artificial intelligence. It's unclear who's behind this, but last year, pro-China bot accounts sent them out over twitter and Facebook.
JACK STUBBS, VP OF INTELLIGENCE, GRPHIKA: And this is the first time we've seen footage in this highly fictitious fake person used in a politically motivated influence operation. This particular set of videos was promoted by an operation that we call Spamouflage, which we've been tracking since at least 2019, and routinely amplifies narratives that align with Beijing's strategic interests.
WANG (voice-over): Research firm Graphika issued a report on this broader campaign that says in part, "More videos portrayed the U.S. in a negative light than focused on any other theme, presenting it as a law-breaking, hegemonistic, racked by civil strife, and failing in the fight against COVID-19.
UNKNOWN: This meeting is off great significance --
WANG (voice-over): They pushed China's geopolitical agenda.
UNKNOWN: Gun violence has killed nearly 40,000 people.
WANG (voice-over): And exposed America's shortcomings. The U.S. National Security Commission on artificial intelligence says AI is deepening the threat posed by cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns that Russia, China, and others are using to infiltrate our society, steal our data, and interfere in our democracy.
UNKNOWN: Hey, there! I'm Anna.
UNKNOWN: Hey, there! I'm Jason.
WANG (voice-over): And these fake news anchors, they were made with technology from British artificial intelligence company, Synthesia.
(On-camera): Let me show you how easy it is to create your own deepfake video. So, I'm on the Synthesia company website. I'm clicking on create a free AI video. And for the script, how about let's have the avatar say, "Hi, I'm a correspondent for CNN." They say I'll get the video in my email in just a few minutes.
UNKNOWN: Hi. I'm a correspondent for CNN.
WANG (voice-over): Synthesia's website shows its technology as mainly used for corporate training and marketing videos. The company said in a statement to CNN, "The recent videos that emerged are in breach of our terms of service and we have identified and banned the user in question."
[17:44:58] Graphika says these news anchor deep fake videos are low quality and did not get a lot of traction on social media.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDEN OF THE UNITED STATES: To build a better world with --
WANG (voice-over): But this technology is spreading rapidly around the world. A few years ago, a Chinese tech firm made this deep fake video of then President Donald Trump speaking Mandarin as a demonstration to promote their company's technology at a Beijing conference.
Chinese state media has even created a whole team of AI news anchors. They're showing it off as a novel new technology that can mass produce shows with these anchors that can work 24/7. The proliferation of deep fake videos makes it dramatically harder to combat disinformation. Experts say it's used by foreign and criminal actors will only grow, bending our reality. Selina Wang, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Sources are telling CNN for the third straight day, the U.S. military has shot down a high-altitude object. This one near Lake Huron. Stay with CNN for the very latest.
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REID: Returning to our breaking news and new details in to CNN from the Pentagon about the takedown of that so-called object. CNN's Kylie Atwood joins us now. Kylie, the Pentagon is now addressing this incident. What are you learning?
ATWOOD: Yeah, the Pentagon press office telling reporters just in the last few minutes here, Paula, that this object was shot down over Lake Huron at 2:42 p.m. this afternoon at the direction of President Biden by F-16 fighter jets. They're saying that it didn't pose a military threat, but it did potentially pose a threat to civilian aircraft.
And that is because it was traveling, according to this statement, at about 20,000 feet elevation. Now, when you think about, you know, everyday aircraft, they fly at about 30,000 feet. So, this statement says that the Biden administration, U.S. officials, were concerned about the path that this was traveling on and also that elevation.
Now, when it comes to any risk to civilians, there wasn't any. There were no civilians who were hurt or injured or otherwise affected. Of course, being shot down over water enabled that to be an outcome. And we should note that yesterday there were some questions about an FAA temporary flight restriction put into place in Montana. And there were some questions about what actually triggered that flight restriction.
We didn't get a definitive answer on that today. There were --
(TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIUES) -- we heard. But this statement from the Pentagon says that they believe that this object is what actually triggered that flight restriction yesterday. And I just want to read to you exactly what they say here, saying, quote, "Based on its flight path and data, we can reasonably connect this object to the radar signal picked up over Montana, which flew in proximity to sensitive DOD sites. We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground but assessed it was a safety flight hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities."
Now, surveillance capabilities, but the potential for those is key here. So far, we don't know what those capabilities on board this unidentifiable object actually was, but that, rest assured, is going to be something that those who are doing these recovery efforts, which is now going to be getting underway, are going to be looking for answers to. Paula?
REID: Kylie Atwood, thank you.
And Republican Congressman Jack Bergman of Michigan joins us now. Representative, you serve on the House Armed Services Committee. What is your reaction to what the Pentagon just revealed, the takedown of this object near Lake Huron?
REP. JACK BERGMAN (R-MI): Well, my reaction is very simple. And that is when the Pentagon called me shortly after it took action because Lake Huron and that area is in my district. Number one, decisive action, using the right equipment, the F-16, using the right type of munition to do the takedown.
But now the big part, as was mentioned by Kylie a minute ago, is the recovery piece to understand. Now, Lake Huron is very, very cold this time of year. They're going to have to do some special diving capabilities to get down there. The good news is Lake Huron is not that deep, not like Lake Superior.
But the need to take decisive action by Northern Command, the Department of Defense, is what we need because we've seen it over the past few weeks. There are some challenges to our sovereign airspace.
REID: And this is the third object shot down in just three days. How concerned are you about this pattern?
BERGMAN: Okay. I just lost your audio. It -- try one more time.
REID: Sure thing. This is the third object shot down in just three days. How -- it seems like we have lost the congressman. We will go to our expert panel and try to circle back with Congressman Jack Bergman.
All right. Let's talk more about this with CNN military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, Cedric Leighton and CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem. Colonel Leighton, Juliette, thank you so much for being with us. I want to get your reaction to what we just heard from the Pentagon. And Juliette, I want to start with you.
KAYYEM: Yeah. And so, it's just a confirmation of what we have been reporting, which is essentially we still don't know what the object is.
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I think what's really important is the military is acknowledging that they are getting lots of positives now because after what happened with the Chinese balloon, they are now opening up the aperture. They are getting more positives. They are then assessing what it is in the sky. If it is unmanned, if it is a threat to commercial aviation, and if shooting it down is not going to harm Americans, basically the assumption is we're shooting it down at this stage until we figure out what this is.
It does not mean we know it's the Chinese. It does not mean that it's simply these potential positives because of we're looking harder after what happened with the Chinese balloon. And I think we should just anticipate that at this stage until we can identify what it is that they're finding once they shoot it down.
And that -- and I think any other speculation could be very dangerous for our relations and could honestly harm Americans because we will be so convinced that this is enemy -- that these are enemy balloons or whatever they are. That we will harm -- we could potentially make calculations that do not fit the risk of this stage. So, that's sort of where we are right now, and I anticipate we are going to get more of these at this stage.
REID: It's a great point. Colonel Leighton, what's your reaction to this latest development from the Pentagon?
LEIGHTON: Yeah. I think, you know, as Juliette said, this confirmed a lot of what we had previously been talking about. One of the key things I felt was very interesting was the fact that they mentioned that the surveillance part of this was a definite possibility. So, this seems to lend credence to the idea that these are, in fact, surveillance craft of whatever type.
And I think we should treat them as such until we know much more. And that means taking security measures at our bases, at our other government installations, and even for personnel, people in the civilian sector to be somewhat cognizant of the possibility that cell phone conversations could be intercepted by the Chinese. They're already being intercepted in many cases anyway, but it is just one of those things that is part of a new reality. And, you know, these devices can, in some ways, you know, make that even more of a plausible threat to people, both the normal people, normal civilians, and people who are in government service.
REID: And Juliette, many Americans right now, they are focused on the Super Bowl, but here the Pentagon putting a statement. Do you think that the government has been providing enough information on these incidents? Of course, where there's no information, conspiracy theories, false accusations fill the void. Have they been providing enough?
KAYYEM: Well, it's very hard because, look, we're going to have individuals who can see these things or monitor what's going on with the military or the National Guard, who are making -- who might make claims that actually the military does not view as true. So, it's like the congressman who were complaining, there appears to be a gap between what they're hearing on the ground and what the military was able to assess.
Here's where I would make a recommendation. I'll go back. I think since the Chinese balloon incident, you really can't get more transparent in the sense that they're shooting these things down. They are announcing the closure of air space. They are then coming forward just two hours after saying here's what we saw, here's what we're doing now.
I think what would be helpful for the American public, given the speculation, is once they can identify it, even if it's a false positive, even if they shot down something that really didn't need to be shot down, they need to come out as quickly as possible. We are 48 hours after that Friday shootdown.
I would hope that within, you know, the next 24 hours, we will begin to then learn more, is this a concerted threat that we then need to elevate our own homeland security defenses? Or is this because of what I was discussing before? We are opening up the aperture and getting potential, you know, we're just getting more positives at this stage. And no one can answer that now. Let's just be clear here. The speculation helps no one. No one can answer that right now.
REID: Colonel, take us inside the Pentagon. What do you think the top brass are talking about right now? They're clearly reacting to this situation? I mean, is it even possible to get ahead of this right now or are they just going to continue to react?
LEIGHTON: Well, in some reasons, I think they are reactive. So, you know, it's kind of our national past time, is to be reactive to events like this. But, you know, they're trying very hard to refine their processes.
And we see part of that in the way that NorthCom has responded to these things, much more frequent, much more actively engaged. You know, clearly everybody from the radar operators to the fighter pilots is doing what they can to make sure that they know what's going on and that they take care of the issue based on the president's direction.
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So, that's something where they're trying to be very proactive. And I think they're trying to manage the public expectations at this particular point. And that of course is all of us you know is a very tough challenge.
REID: Well Colonel Cedric Leighton, Juliette Kayyem thank you so much. And stay with CNN for the very latest on this breaking news tonight. The Pentagon says an F-16 was ordered by President Biden to shoot down another high altitude object, this one near Lake Huron, with much more on CNN This Morning starting at 6 a.m. eastern. I'm Paula Reid, good night.
