possible explosives to deflate the balloon. gillian: in a moment, karine jean-pierre will be asked questions why the president waited nearly a week to shoot it down. john: we will bring you the white house briefing when it begins. john roberts in washington, good to kick the week off with you. gillian: you, too, john. i m gillian turner in for sandra smith. the president said ordered the military to take out the balloon after it had been drifting for days. they say the military should have listened. he projected weakness at this moment. i think the administration lacks urgency. became a situation of argument and everybody wondering what is the administration doing. this is a wake-up call for the country. gillian: john kirby pushed back, said it gave the u.s. time to study the balloon, as well as chinese s motives. john: seems clear china s motive is to replace the united states as the leading superpower. a list of how china has provoked and escalated tension
so now here s what we know. the balloon is about 200 feet high, the pay load, which you saw suspended beneath it to gather intelligence was about the size of a jetliner. that debris, which is expected to include glass solar panels was spread out over the size of 15 football fields. may have included battery material, explosives that would detonate that vehicle. the pieces now on their way, some of them, to the fbi lab at quantico for analysis. so there s a lot of discussion about how this thing was brought down and whether or not it maximized our ability to understand what it was and what was in it. as i mentioned, we re watching the white house. the press briefing is john going. we re waiting for fresh answers about what happened up there, new reaction. china says there might be a further response merited for the united states from our taking this out of the sky over the weekend. today fox news spoke with the gentleman who disclosed that this was up there in the sky without
good to be with you, i m kay katy tur, the chinese spy balloon is still hanging over the white house. why they didn t know about it sooner and what the u.s. was able to gather about the balloon while it was still in the air. the gang of eight is waiting for a full briefing. the white house has offered one and it s expected to get on the schedule next week. house intel chair republican mike turner said the balloon exposed a weakness at the top. clearly this was an attempt by china to gather information to defeat our command and control of our sensitive missile defense and nuclear weapon sites and that certainly is an urgency that this administration does not recognize. i ll know the answer to that question this week when we actually get briefed on the decision making process about when and how to take down the balloon. there s an awful lot of people like me coming to absolutely rock solid conclusions based on very few facts. none of us know what the decision making process
florida lawmakers can w disney on the docket, the one that ended the tax district after the magic kingdom came out against the don t say gay law. i m hallie jackson in washington, but let s start with nbc news foreign correspondent molly hunter, and nbc news meteorologist bill karins. let s take a look about what we know about the story that has developed quite a bit over the last 18 hours or so. very strong earthquakes, two of them, in a region that includes part of turkey and syria. the first was early in the morning. 7.8 magnitude. the second later in the afternoon, 7.5. we know at least 3,000 people are dead. it s very likely that number, horrifically will go up. rescuers on the ground, countries around the world promising to send help as well. the quakes took place near the turkish city, pretty large, population, more than 2 million people, people as far away as egypt and israel felt this thing. that s the difference between new york and chicago. i want to get to molly
down to earth. the u.s. shoots down a suspected chinese spy balloon monitoring u.s. military sites. i told them to shoot it down. what specifically was the chinese government looking for? how might the incident affect the u.s.-china relationship? vice chair on the senate intelligence committee marco rubio joins me ahead. making his case. president biden gears up to address a divided congress. the state of the union and the state of our economy is strong. ahead of the suspected 2024 bid, how will he make his pitch? i ll speak to cabinet secretary pete buttigieg next. debt dilemma. biden and speaker mccarthy plan another meeting as democrats wait for the gop to put their cards on the table. are these the members that could come to a deal and avert financial catastrophe. bipartisan chair of the house problem solvers caucus will join me in moments. hello. i m jake tapper in washington where the state of our union is deflated. the u.s. military is recovering the remnan