At the risk of being flamed here is a possible reason for handling the balloon in the manner it was. Maybe we wanted the actual apparatii in the baloon. Shooting it down over land might cause damage making recovery unuseful. Shooting it down over the Pacific might make recovery impossible as the west coast has no continental shelf and depths reach a mile very wuickly. Shooting it down off the Carolinas made recovery of little damaged tech much more likely. Now was thiz worth exposing the US military bases and comms to Chinese tech? I don’t know but it that exposure was limited by countermeasures then this might explain the Admin’s actions.
Very true as I would have downed any commie balloon as we killed any Chink we ran into across the border. From Obama to Biden look up the corporations we have lost to these rotten punks. Both of these POS have become rich by selling you, me, and all Americans out. How did Obozzo get the money to live near the Kennedy family? He sold us out. Hang him and Biden.