the white house from camp david today saying he wanted to shoot down the balloon at the first available opportunity and that, in his view, is exactly what the pentagon did. watch it come over into the united states from canada. i told them to shoot it down as soon as it was appropriate. they concluded we should not shoot it down over land, was not a serious threat and we should wait until it got across the water. that s, of course, what happened saturday afternoon. a usf-22 fighter firing a single sidewinder missile at the chinese balloon bringing it down just off the coast of south carolina, and the president said the chinese were well aware of what was coming. we made it clear to china what we were going to do. reporter: but critics, many of them republican, question the wisdom of waiting to shoot down the balloon until after it had flown right across the united states and over several sensitive u.s. military sites. look, i m not saying detonate this thing over a
bret: the death toll from a massive earthquake that shook turkey and syria today continues to climb. it stand injured. the world health organization estimates the death toll could climb exponentially. countlessbodies are believed to be under the rubble and some survivors have been texting or tweeting out calls for help from underneath the debris. today in southern turkey, a second earthquake or aftershock 7.6 within 12 hours of that first quake. correspondent alex hogan has the story. it s turkey s biggest earthquake in nearly 100 years as rescue teams there and in northern syria search through mountains of rubble for survivors. thousands are dead and missing or wounded. more than 20 countries, including the u.s. pledging support. the president authorized an immediate u.s. response in addition to the u.s. personnel currently on the ground. this hospital s plead for international aid. the situation is too bad. we need urgent help. millions of people throughout the
good evening, jacqui. pres good evening, bret. fighter jet decision will disownt disappoint ukraine. the president has moved from self-imposed red lines before just last week. today the president was asked to confirm report that he goal poland around the one year anniversary of the invasion he said he will go but he is not sure when. president biden is stamping out a push to provide f-16 fighter jets to ukraine as it plan as new offensive to retake territory occupied by russia this spring. the country s defense ministry tweeting simply f-16 three days ago. today a one word answer from president biden. no. meantime biden is still waiving off questions about his handling of classified documents. i don t even know. the doj says it will work with congress on some oversight requests. responding to bipartisan calls from the senate intelligence committee over national security exposure with the biden and trump documents. the assistant attorney general says prosecutors on
wow. thanks so much to you for joining us. ac 360 begins now. the forecast? wretched. the timing? even worse. once in a generation winter storm and this one they say is going to be very, very dangerous. i m in for anderson, john berman here. already nearly half the country s population is shivering under wind chill alerts or has seen temperatures drop as much as 70 degrees overnight. this is sioux falls, south dakota. you know it s cold there when the falls at sioux falls stop falling. because they re frozen solid. you know how widespread the big chill could get when places as far south as tallahassee in florida are forecasting lows in the low 20s. if that weren t enough we re seeing countless blizzard warnings, flood watches, wind and ice advisories and of course thousands of flight cancellations. nearly 2400 already today. more than 2,000 for tomorrow. all of this smack dab in the middle of the christmas travel rush. it s not just snow. it is wind and cold as part o
loads of passengers still stranded in airports throughout the country. but amid the staggering number of flight cancellations and delays, finger pointing from employees now over who is to blame for this mess is beginning. senior correspondent mike to. mike: good evening, bret. and as southwest executives are promising return to normal operations, transportation secretary pete buttigieg sends out a letter scolding the airlines for problems that were, quote: within the control of the airlines. as he writes that, he also wrote these frontline employees are not to blame for mistakes at the leadership level. the secretary add mop be issue inned the airline to make good on everything from reimbursement to returns home. nearly 2500 flights were canceled across the nation today. the bulk of them southwest. the bosses at the airline issuing another apology. my personal apology is the first step of making things right. after many plans changed, and experiences fell short of your ex