The U.S. military shot down the Chinese spy balloon on Saturday that traveled thousands of miles across the country after President Joe Biden refused to shoot it down over land.

U.S. officials have launched a recovery effort to collect the debris from the downed spy balloon in U.S. waters in the Atlantic Ocean.

Best video so far of the Chinese spy balloon being shot down pic.twitter.com/MrWB403OqJ

— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) February 4, 2023

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) closed several airports in North and South Carolina and nearby airspace in conjunction with the U.S. military effort.

Biden has taken heavy criticism for his decision to let the spy balloon fly over the U.S. for thousands of miles when many officials say that he should have shot it down over Montana or over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

“What the Pentagon has said was we didn’t want to shoot it down because of the chances of civilian casualties. This is a balloon that didn’t get here overnight. It was over the Aleutian chain, which is one of the most sparsely populated places on the planet,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) said. “In Montana, Petroleum County, for example… the least populated county in the lower 48, I guarantee you, the fine citizens of Petroleum County would enjoy having it shot down over their county, and probably there would be a line to shoot it down.”

Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said during a press conference on Friday that the balloon was maneuverable and was hovering at altitudes of up to 60,000 feet as it crossed the country.

“We know that balloon has violated US airspace and international law — which is unacceptable. And we’ve conveyed this directly to the PRC on multiple levels,” he told reporters Friday. “The fact is, we know that it’s a surveillance balloon, and I’m not going to be able to be more specific than that.”

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed in a statement that the balloon was a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes.”

The statement claimed that the balloon “deviated far from its planned course.” The distance from China to Montana is approximately 5,000 miles.

An official told CNN that the spy balloon has flown over “a number of sensitive sites” in the U.S. but claimed that it did not present a serious intelligence gathering risk.

“Clearly they’re trying to fly this — this balloon over sensitive sites … to collect information,” a U.S. official said on Thursday.

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Comedian Bill Maher blasted woke revolutionaries who think they can change human nature during his show Friday, drawing parallels between the woke movement in the U.S. and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. 

During Friday’s episode of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher took aim at leftist activists, saying that they are actually fighting a war with reality and biology. 

“If you’re part of today’s woke revolution, you need to study the part of revolutions where they spin out of control because the revolutionaries get so drunk on their purifying elixir, they imagine they can reinvent the very nature of human beings,” Maher said. 

If you're part of today's woke revolution, you need to study the part of revolutions where they spin out of control. pic.twitter.com/IYNfDhtR0C

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) February 4, 2023

Maher then discussed communists, who he said believed that they could selfishness from humanity. 

“The problem with communism, and with some very recent ideologies here at home is that they think they can change reality by screaming at it, that you can bend human nature by holding your breath. But that’s the difference between reality and your mommy,” Maher said. 

The comedian also joked that he had asked ChatGPT about similarities between Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China and the woke revolutionaries of today, saying that it responded by asking him how much time he had.

Maher referenced Mao’s war on the Four Olds of old thinking, old culture, old customs, and old habits before he compared communist reeducation programs to freshman orientation at American universities. 

To back up his claims, Maher pointed to Jason Kilborn, a law professor who was disciplined for alluding to racial slurs in a test question about racial bias, and Winston Marshall, a former banjo player for Mumford and Sons who was criticized after sharing that he liked a book by Andy Ngo. 

During the monologue, Maher also blasted those who think they can erase gender and make obesity healthy by creating a new human. 

“With communists, that human was no longer selfish. In America today, that human is no longer born male or female. And obesity is not something that affects health. You can be healthy at any size. Seriously, we voted on it,” Maher said. 

Maher, who has been critical of gender theory in the past, blasted The Atlantic as a “formerly serious magazine” because it had published an article about not segregating sports by sex. 

“I’ve spent three decades on TV mocking Republicans who said climate change was just a theory,” he concluded. “And now I got to deal with people who say, ‘You know what else is just a theory? Biology.’”