good day. i m andrea mitchell in washington. we go directly to the pentagon and the briefing on the china spy balloon. because we do not have internet or phone capability in this area of the pentagon for a variety of reasons, our normal call-in options will not be available. for those who have had to call in, we apologize for the inconvenience. however, we will aim to get our briefing transcripts and the audio up as quickly as possible. we will aim to answer your questions through our dod press desk when you send them to us. moving forward, we will look at ways to improve our briefing operations and the facilitation and expect that our regular press briefings will resume in the press briefing room in middle to late may. again, we appreciate your patience and flexibility and extend our thanks to the department of the air force for allowing us to use airman s hall as our temporary briefing home. secretary austin returned yesterday from a very productive series of meetings in
tensions with china. nbc news was first to report the suspected chinese surveillance balloon hovering over the northern united states around montana for the past few days. china is now responding claiming it is a civilian airship used for weather research that was blown off course. but how credible is that claim? minutes ago we learned secretary of state antony blinken is postponing his trip to china for what was supposed to be a highly anticipated meeting with china s leader next week. the pentagon is set to hold a briefing in the next hour. we know the department of defense is tracking the balloon closely, even at one point discussing shooting it down. we even have air traffic audio from wednesday about a, quote, special mission. we just got alerted from salt lake tmu we re on a ground stop right now until further notice for a special mission going on over the livingston area. we don t know exactly when we can have our next departure. it is landing with a thud on capito
does not pose a risk to people on the ground as it currently is traversing the continental united states. out of caution, cognizant of the potential impact to civilians on the ground, from a debris field, right now we will monitor and review options. if i may, you mentioned that we have seen this activity before. why are we sharing this one and why last night if you were following it for a few days? is this a sign we should take from china ahead of blinken s visit or from the activity in the philippines? in terms of any hypotheticals about messaging from prc, i would refer you to them on that front. i think what makes this different is the duration and the length of which it has been over u.s. territory. beyond that, i m not going to go into any more specifics. mike. thanks, pat. yesterday a senior defense official said that the
nbc news white house correspondent mike memoli joins us if philly as well as jonathan capehart host of the sunday show here on msnbc and associate editor of the washington post. mike, first to you, the president today is expected to push the democrats for a big change in the party s presidential nominating process. iowa s out as the first caucus and then new hampshire, and let me tell you my family in new hampshire and friends up there and members of congress and the governor not happy about that. reporter: you got that right, andrea, and new hampshire democrats who are here are also unhappy about it, but it s going to be a significant change to the calendar. it was three years ago today, andrea, if you d believe it that the iowa caucuses created something of a muddle for democrats. if this new calendar is adopted by the dnc tomorrow as we expect, it will be a year from today that it s south carolina as the first primary in the country. now, this is obviously going to be something
right now on andrea mitchell reports, tony blinken at the last minute postponing tonight s critical trip to china. the first by a u.s. secretary in six years if he had gone in response to china s sending a spy balloon to hover over the u.s., increasing tensions between the two world powers. we expect a pentagon briefing momentarily. we have former cia director john brennan and republican house china committee chair mike gallagher as the speaker demands president biden take strong action for what mccarthy is calling china s brazen disregard for u.s. sovereignty. a massive january jobs report, a big boost for the white house. a sign the fed will not stop raising interest rates any time soon.