Bolton ‘stunned’ by claims of spy balloons during Trump presidency

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton joins CNN's Kaitlan Collins on "CNN This Morning" to discuss the Biden administration's claim that balloons were discovered in US airspace during the Trump administration. #CNN #News

86 comments

  1. MTG says Trump would have dissolved the balloon with his mind before China even released it.

    1. @FlushaArt Intergalactic is this supposed to “bother me”? I want idiot Biden and Trump to share the same cell and bar of soap.

    2. @Jeremy DeCarofuzzy wuzzy was bear…fuzzy wazzy had no hear
      Nic knack paddy whack give a dog a bone …ET phone home

  2. Itr’s questionable how those who lack true awareness of the facts might think it reasonable to volunteer an opinion at all. Thinking any administration is required to volunteer all intel is ridiculous.

    1. He loves the sound of his own voice and thinks he is some kind of genius who possesses the wisdom of the ages in his mustache.

    2. Come on. That’s like calling out the entire right wing nuts to keep their mouth shut when they don’t know what they are talking about.
      Oh, wait, yea. 🙂

    1. Biden sold China half of our National Oil Reserves
      Pentagon announces that if we have to go to war with Taiwan, we will only have enough munitions to last ONE WEEK !!!!! It hasn’t been this low since the Korean War!
      Half our Oil Reserves have been emptied.
      Biden is Handing over the USA on a silver platter to CHINA.
      Next to fall- THE DOLLAR !

  3. Of course Bolton thinks that the immediate reactionary response devoid of considering any consequences would have been the correct move.

    1. Biden sold China half of our National Oil Reserves
      Pentagon announces that if we have to go to war with Taiwan, we will only have enough munitions to last ONE WEEK !!!!! It hasn’t been this low since the Korean War!
      Half our Oil Reserves have been emptied.
      Biden is Handing over the USA on a silver platter to CHINA.
      Next to fall- THE DOLLAR !

  4. So, Bolton thinks that some Airforce pilot ought direct his aircraft under a falling balloon, the size of 3 busses, in order to catch it… 🤔 🙄

    1. These people seriously think NORAD tracks Santa’s sleigh circumnavigating the globe on Xmas Eve. So, why not?

    2. Iam sure that if we laded men on the moon over 51 years ago we could have brought this balloon to earth in one piece. NOTE NASA is now working on a plan to land men on the moon.

    3. @Robert Young conspiritard, answer me this honestly, if a rino is a republican, what is it that makes a republican an actual republican, willing to blow themselves up for trunk?

    1. I believe you are correct, though 3-bus size (volume) != 3 bus weight. If it did weigh that much, that balloon is unfathomably massive (bigger than 2-3 hot air balloons, particularly as floating at 60,000 ft requires a _lot_ more displacement per pound than a typical hot air balloon).

    2. The most unscientific childish description ever.- 3:bus . A British news source eventually figured it out. The length of the solar array was about 35m long estimated which is very inaccurately compared to bus lengths. Eventually it became a mess of confusion

    3. That “film” capture was not done a 65,000ft and it was done with a container that had been specifically designed with that capture in mind which is the far more relevant parameter.

    4. @Kim Wilson Wait, don’t we have cargo planes that could have caught it that fly at 60,000 feet. No we don’t and a U2 would have come apart if we tried to do that. We could get an SR71 out of mothballs and catch it going only about Mach 2 so that would have been great, imagine what would have happened to the plane and the cargo. How was this guy ever in his position when he says such patently stupid things.

    5. Straight Dope….. (?)

      According to an article in Wikipedia concerning this incident, a U-2S was dispatched to surveil the spy balloon at some point during its transit of North America.

      To high to hit…(?)

      I would imagine an air to air rocket might be able to climb to an altitude higher than the aircraft that released it.

      This being said, the F-22 Raptor aircraft is reported to be able to fly tactical maneuvers at the balloon’s height of 60,000 feet.

      Prior balloon incursions….

      The Wikipedia entry states that since 2017 three balloons are known to have crossed U.S. airspace over Florida, Guam and Hawaii and that China was later able to recover the balloons.

      These three earlier balloon incursions were not detected at the time.

      Their existence was only discovered ‘after the fact’ by U.S. intelligence.

      If this information is correct, then the Trump administration could not have heard about the balloons soon enough to do anything about them.

      What is not mentioned is whether these three previously known balloon flights over Guam and Hawaii made it as far as the continental U.S., the geographical location where the Chinese eventually recovered them nor how much time had passed ‘after the fact’.

      A fourth Balloon….

      The Wikipedia article mentions that President Biden had ordered that airspace surveillance be improved in order to detect things (like spy balloons).

      No details are given regarding a fourth balloon that is said to have been actually detected at some point during the current administration.

      It has not been revealed where this fourth balloon was headed nor whether it reached U.S. airspace

      (My take is that President Biden, having received a number of briefings concerning national security when he first took office, had learned about the three previous Chinese spy balloons and ordered that steps be taken to ‘enhance’ our detection capability.)

      Now then…

      I recommend that folks utilize Wikipedia to stay current with this incident.

      The Wikipedia entry seems to be constantly evolving as an increasing amount of cogent information is being submitted from many sources.

      Straight dope… (?)

      A fair degree of review and correction appears to be taking place on Wikipedia as well.

      There was one submitted entry that has, during the time I am writing this, been withdrawn.

      It contained the apparently erroneous information that a heat seeking missile was chosen because the balloon was of the hot air variety.

      From the pictures I have seen, the shape of the balloon indicates a gas filled envelope.

      The flaming result of the missile hit suggests that the gas utilized was hydrogen.

      Heat seeking….(?)

      I have an idea that the U-2S flyby had revealed, among other things, that the balloon or parts of its payload apparently generated enough of a heat signature to allow a missile to home in for the kill.

      ‘Nuf said…

      … Schleep Well!

    1. @thomas boland Trump is just not worse than Biden sorry. No one believes that anymore or at least most don’t. Both are bad but Biden man he has been such an awful president.

    2. Bolton info was 🐂💩. Just like Russian collusion and so called Trump tax cheating. Liberals are confused more ways than one.

    1. @The Boring Channel I love how you cnn viewers continue to worry about Trump with Biden being as awful as he is lol. The echo chamber people of the country. Probably the most ill informed people that live in the uS.

    2. IT’S ALL ABOUT KNOWN KNOWNS, UNKNOWN UNKNOWS, AND KNOWS UNKNOWNS… BOLTON IS A KNOWN KNOWN.. I.E. JEWIS# PUPPET

  5. Ultimately if there was a risk to people on the ground from falling balloon debris then it was handled appropriately by the Pentagon. They wanted to shoot it down safely.

    1. @Grey Alien  Have you ever exited an aircraft at high altitude ? As you fall, you still have momentum plus speed from gravity, unless you have a parachute with an apex vent to control the direction. From the height of this balloon, ( it overflew the rockies) it would have covered a great many miles before impact, the debris field was estimated SEVEN miles long … do the math. I HAVE 36 PARACHUTE JUMPS. ( by the way 100′ s of miles is YOUR statement, not mine, don’t put words in my fucking mouth, you got that?) ….

    2. @Damon Johnson you replied to the person that said 100’s of miles. it wouldn’t cover 100s of miles falling no matter how you look at it. that’s the point.

    3. @Grey Alien Instead of trying to warn people and hoping people actually hear the warning, why not just shoot it down over the ocean? The Pentagon claimed they had already jammed the device, so it was no longer collecting or transmitting information to China. It also said the military was able to obtain Chinese intel from it as it flew. I don’t understand what the problem was with their plan.

    4. There is plenty of space in the CONUS where there are few if any people where the balloon could’ve been shot down.

    5. Why the hell did they allow the balloon to fly over the entire Sea and then inter the US?? It should have NEVER made it across the ocean!! Bang thhhhreeeewww kerplunk…enough said

  6. John Bolton cannot say if balloons floated across the US during the Trump presidency until he has written a book about it.

    1. The Biden administration said they were not briefed on this that they didn’t even know it was happening that’s scary what the hell man

    2. USA violated the international air traffic in shooting down the balloon. What about the Foreigner Satellites above USA ? Are they going to be shoot down ?

    1. You are talking about Trump and his cohorts I presume…BTW your definition is absurd…whether you created it your clever self or read it somewhere. Presumably you live in a state of bliss.

  7. John Bolton, the voice of reason and sense; especially, on the recovery of “bits” (air capture)…

  8. Bolton: “I think national security will be more important in 2024” Since the day he could speak a word, it has been about fear.

    1. For us who served the Military and knows about National Security this incident was a failure of epic proportion of this incompetent Joe Biden Administration. We walked the walk so you can have this talk. Got that?

  9. I find it funny how the same people who say “we don’t know what it was carrying.” ” it could have had biological weapons.” Are also the ones who say things like why wasn’t it shot down over land?.

  10. And the rest of us are “stunned” by Bolton standing by as Trump’s National Security Advisor, doing nothing, then claiming outrage and selling a book.

  11. Bolton is the great man when it comes to putting people in danger but would never once think of putting himself in in any sort of danger himself. Like the old time generals, hide in the bunker 50 miles from the front and told his troops to get on with it

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