a good saturday morning to you. it is saturday, february 4th, you re live in the cnn newsroom, thanks for joining us so much for sharing part of your saturday morning with us. we begin with an eye toward the sky. we re getting new reports about the location of that chinese spy balloon that has been drifting across the country. according to reports, it has been spotted over north carolina an officials say it could move off the east coast and out over the ocean in a matter of hours. and as you would imagine, the balloon is raising national security concerns, and it is adding to the tension between washington and beijing. it was people on the ground in montana who spotted the balloon as it passed overhead. that thing is not the moon. the moon is right there. this thing is so weird. it is definitely moving. the context and the timing of this are really important. the secretary of state antony blinken called it an irresponsible act by china. keep in mind, this comes just day
following new details about that chinese spy balloon traveling across the country. new video into the cnn newsroom showing the balloon now hovering over asheville, and charlotte, north carolina in the last hour. and it could make it out to sea at any moment. the balloon was first spotted over montana on wednesday. china claims it s a civilian research vessel that blew offcourse, but the u.s. isn t buying that, calling the balloon s flight over u.s. soil an irresponsible act. secretary of state antony blinken postponing a planned trip to beijing in response. cnn s oren liebermann is at pentagon for us. oren, officials say the balloon doesn t currently seem to present a threat, but why is the pentagon also preceding with caution on it? reporter: so the pentagon has said for now that it will not be shooting this down, because of the risks from two different perspectives, first there s the risk to what s below, blow something up at 60,000 feet and that could be scattered over q
this week that their recommendation to president biden was not to shoot this down because of risk to people and property below. so this balloon made its way across a good chunk to have united states, from montana on tuesday and wednesday to where it is now over essentially north carolina where it s reaching the coast and open water beyond that where you no longer have the risk to people and property below. therefore, the question then becomes, does the military change its recommendation and recommend to president joe biden if you go ahead and follow the we ll take care of it, that will be the time and the place to shoot this down. it is worth noting, i ve been watching flight tracking websites pretty much all morning. there we ve seen some note worthy flight activity. a couple refuelling tankers right off the coast of myrtle beach essentially flying in a holding pattern. why is that note worthy? because fighters that could be used to shoot this down might need to refuel as th
undemocratic than putting your political opponent in prison. the american people voted to put trump in power. then they voted to take that power away. and that s how things work in america. now that trump is running again a filthy d.a. rah sass sinating your right to vote. what s the crime? the indictment says under new york state law is a felony to falsify business records. we cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct coldcock an asian lady not serious. push into the subway not serious. make a error in a general ledger serious conduct. the thousands of businesses that put things in the wrong ledger don t they have to worry? no, why. because their owners aren t running for president. how is trump going to get a fair trial in new york? how can you going to pick a jury in how many jurors have no opinion on donald trump? who the is jury foreman rachel maddow. bragg doesn t understand this case he can t explain it. he says trump broke election law he did not put the
tuesday and apparently will continue to do so for several more days or less as you know it s already flown over alaska and montana and near several u.s. facilities with nuclear processes within their facilities. can you believe that? it s true. and while the white house says it s keeping all options on the table, so far it has decided against shooting it down after, quote, strong recommendations from defense officials. now, for its part china says it s a civilian airship what s to worry. a research balloon that simply drifted off course. well, the white house says it doesn t present a military or physical threat to people on the ground even though they re skeptical about the chinese claim. however republican lawmakers want that thing brought down right now. unless china s working with the biden administration to help find some of those missing documents scattered all over the united states, then this is unacceptable and this should not be allowed and again another sign of w