federal government. plus, in the next 30 minutes, president biden takes his political fight to florida, home to his biggest potential rivals. and devastation in syria and turkey, almost unimaginable as the death toll closes in on 20,000. we re live in turkey where one of our reporters just witnessed an incredible rescue. but we start with some explosive moments in those hearings we just mentioned, both democratic and republican lawmakers going hard at the biden administration and its officials for not doing something sooner about that chinese surveillance balloon. the truth is i got a problem with the chinese balloon flying over my state. by the administration s logic, we would allow the chinese to fly surveillance balloons over the pentagon or other sensitive sites near populated areas. as an alaskan, i am so angry. i want to use other words, but i m not going to. i want to bring in nbc s ryan nobles who s on capitol hill and michael crowley as the diplomatic c
right now, two separate senate committees are drilling into u.s. and china relations. in the wake of that chinese spy balloon entering the u.s. just last hour senator jon tester made the stakes abundantly clear. china s a real threat and one we need to take seriously, which is exactly why we re here today. house members this morning receiving a classified briefing on the balloon ahead of a vote scheduled just a few minutes from now to condemn china s use of a spy craft. senators are set to receive an all members briefing of their own in about 30 minutes. all of this happening as the state department is revealing fresh details about china s surveillance program this morning. and just what the balloon hovering over the u.s. was capable of. in a few moments, i ll talk to former u.s. ambassador to china max baucus about what we can learn and the very real threat posed by china. plus, fading hopes for survival, days after devastating earthquakes rocked turkey and syria. the
clarified by any authorities own upending arrest. nonetheless, in the past 2 hours since comp made this claim key republican figures like house speaker kevin mccarthy, south carolina senator lindsey graham, they have all echoed trump accusations. the manhattan da s indictmen is politically motivated speaker mccarthy going eve further. clay meaty he would use hi powers to investigate somethin that has not actually even happen mike pence, a potential 20 202 potential candidate who wa targeted by the mob who storme the capitol on january six als fell in line with a talkin point. he says he does not think that this is what americans want. watch this just feels like politically-charged prosecutio here for my part i just feel like i is just not want the america people want to see i believ that people understand that if they give voice to this, i this occurs on tuesday, that they need to do so peacefull and in a lawful manner the manhattan distric attorney s office, which i i
guest. we look at biden s momentum today after the state of the union. later tonight we will go inside this quest to indict donald trump in new york with the lawyers who know the secret process. we have details, new information. that s tonight. as for the big story, though, president biden speaking today in wisconsin calling out some republicans on both style and substance. they seemed shocked when i raised the plans of some of their members and their caucus to cut social security, and marjorie taylor greene and others stood up and said liar, liar. i remind you that rick scott from florida, the guy who ran the u.s. senate campaign, has a. the president leaning into this exchange, which gave republican strategists all kinds of heartburn last night, some of their most divisive members basically disrespecting the office. this drew attention to how republicans, some of them in the party want to slash the safety net. instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some r
the second world war or new assessment of the worst pandemic since 1918 china is front and center tonight. on ukraine members of the administration spoke today and over the weekend warning beijing that arming russia would be a mistake. we are confident that the chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment that would be a very risky and unwise bet. bill burns, the cia director. on covid we learned yesterday that the department of energy has assessed in a newly updated intelligence report that it most likely originated from a laboratory leak. cnn has just learned the reason for that updated report. three sources telling cnn that the department of energy shift was based in part on information about the research that the chinese centers for disease control, the chinese cdc in wuhan, was doing around the time of the outbreak on a coronavirus variant. cnn has previously reported that the lab was studying coronaviruses m bats but it is unclear how closely