it spent minutes, not hours over u.s. territorial waters off of alaska and crossed in to canada. general glen van hurk explained why he did not order the balloon to be shot down after it entered alaska. it was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical military threat to north america. i could not take immediate action because it was not demonstrating hostile act or hostile intent. on tuesday, january 31, the balloon crossed into idaho. the next day president biden gave the order to shoot it down when safe to do so after being briefed by his national security team. general van hurk said the balloon was 200 feet tall, carrying 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of equipment including photographic sensors able possible explosives that were as big as a regional jet.
it could take a few weeks or a few months. for the other whales, they haven t not received those yet. trace: thanks, alexis live in new york. al alexis, thank you. that is the story of tuesday, january 31. i will see you at midnight on the east coast, 9:00 p.m. on the west. fox news at night. your world now. we ve had the first round. now the democrats are doing their questioning and they get an hour. we had an hour and they get an hour and we ll come back in an hour and i ll have more. what is the big take-away so far? i ll wait till it s all over with. neil: still waiting for the low-down on the sit-down. members of the house oversight committee meeting with the top national archives official as they try to get to the bottom of the classified documents that
a few months. for the other whales, they haven t not received those yet. trace: thanks, alexis live in new york. al alexis, thank you. that is the story of tuesday, january 31. i will see you at midnight on the east coast, 9:00 p.m. on the west. fox news at night. your world now. we ve had the first round. now the democrats are doing their questioning and they get an hour. we had an hour and they get an hour and we ll come back in an hour and i ll have more. what is the big take-away so far? i ll wait till it s all over with. neil: still waiting for the low-down on the sit-down. members of the house oversight committee meeting with the top national archives official as they try to get to the bottom of the classified documents that had been found at president
gretchen: top of the morning to you. it s tuesday, january 31. i m gretchen carlson. it s a big day in florida. primary day and the polls are open. mitt romney taking it easy and giving newt gingrich a chance to close the gap. we re live in florida moments from now. steve: meanwhile, remember $6 trillion ago when the debt was only in single digits? well, president obama said this when he was a senator. $30,000 for every man, woman and child, that s irresponsible! it s unpatriotic. steve: that was when george bush was president. now it s almost $200,000. so is president obama unpatriotic? laura ingraham here to react coming up. brian: all right. move over, manning. step aside, brady. we ve got our own version of the big game this morning. it s coming back, the puppy bowl is here. the giants already coming out
washington s power brokers for decades. you should know gingrich s secret weapon in south carolina was the endorsement he got from chuck norris and you should know this is how he made it happen. you should know the next republican primary will be held in florida on tuesday, january 31. mitt romney is already among there. 538 blog updated before last night s results projects romney winning about 46% and santorum at 15%. but if the next ten days on the campaign are anything like the last ten days, you should know that s liable to change. you should know that as the president prepares to give his third state of the union address, there are mounting signs from hotel vacancy rates to latest manufacturing output numbers the u.s. economy is edging towards genuine recovery. you should know financial crisis in europe couldn t do that very quickly. you should know underprovisions of current law if the practical government just does nothing, the federal budget deficit will decline very rapidly in