of the american people. but make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the american people, i will take it down. president joe biden addresses the chinese surveillance balloon and other objects shot down by the military in recent days. more of his comments and his message to beijing in just a moment. plus former president trump claims total exoneration following the partial release of a grand jury report on election interference in georgia. we ll explain why that s not even close to being true. and also ahead the latest update from the epa on the major ohio train derailment which is now a focus of many conspiracy theorists. good morning and welcome to way too early on this friday, folks. we made it. friday, february 17th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. we ll begin this morning in washington where president joe biden spoke extensively for the first time yesterday about his administration s decision to shoo
conspiracies by the ex-president and his allies including in the media. in its $1.6 billion defamation case pierces the hermetically sealed bubble that is fox news. the network that drives the conversation and conduct in the republican party and on the right like none other. it shows that hosts on fox news either peddled the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from trump or gave the platform for people to spread the big lie that the election was stolen from trump for one reason and one reason only, fear, terror really of losing viewers and tumbling stock prices and viewers migrating to more radical outlets. messages and emails obtained by dominion along with testimony from fox news employees and hosts reveals that it was well known and bantered about inside fox news that the vote fraud conspiracies were as rupert murdoch put it terrible stuff, damaging everybody. and that it was, quote, very hard to credibly claim foul. claim foul, they did and panic over viewers turnin
the beat starts with ari melber. has it ever happened to you a tickle in your throat? i was going to say, real quick, do you want a lozenge? i just chewed one. my dentist will be so mad. i don t know if i should share this but i used to do a show on msnbc, and one of my coanchors would get on me about putting the cough drop on the paper in the commercial and then back and forth. i was like, i m going to conserve it. it was here a second ago. i chewed it up to clean up for you. america appreciates your voice, i think, so let s keep it. thanks, ari. have a great show. nice to see you, nicolle. you re welcome. welcome to the beat. i m ari melber. notwithstanding our voices and whether we keep them or lose them, i can tell you i m going to use my voice to tell you about two legaling aments surrounding president trump. we can tell you the wall street journal and cnn are reporting that trump s chief of staff mark meadows has been officially subpoenaed by spec
it s how you use your radar. we typically are focused on things that are moving fast. and so it s a bit more difficult to collect on slow moving objects like a balloon. and as they made adjustments, they were able to seize that. the secretary of defense giving an explanation for the string of unidentified objects over the northern united states. it comes as president joe biden may address today how his administration will deal with other objects in the future. also happening this morning, we ll get our first look at pieces of the grand jury report investigating donald trump s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in georgia. and meanwhile the former president s only challenger so far in 2024 kicks off her campaign with comments about her former boss and president biden that are getting a lot of attention this morning. good morning and welcome to way too early on this thursday, february 16th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. president j
hi there, everyone. it s 4:00 in new york. before the january 6th select committee ever got off the ground, before it existed, and well before the first signs ever emerged that the justice department was investigating the trump part of the trump coup plot, before even donald trump s second impeachment trial wrapped up. one local prosecutor in georgia decided she would take on donald trump and the unprecedented assault on our democracy in the wake of the 2020 election and she launched a criminal probe into the conduct of the ex-president and his allies in her state. today, about two years and one week to the day that that investigation was launched, we finally got our first real glimpse into her work. the work of fulton county district attorney fannie willis. portions of her report compiled by a special grand jury were released this morning. the report gives us a sense of the depth of her investigation. 75 witnesses, a mountain of documents and data. along with testimony from