good to be with you, i'm kay katy tur, the chinese spy balloon is still hanging over the white house. why they didn't know about it sooner and what the u.s. was able to gather about the balloon while it was still in the air. the gang of eight is waiting for a full briefing. the white house has offered one and it's expected to get on the schedule next week. house intel chair republican mike turner said the balloon exposed a weakness at the top. >> clearly this was an attempt by china to gather information to defeat our command and control of our sensitive missile defense and nuclear weapon sites and that certainly is an urgency that this administration does not recognize. >> i'll know the answer to that question this week when we actually get briefed on the decision making process about when and how to take down the balloon. there's an awful lot of people like me coming to absolutely rock solid conclusions based on very few facts.

none of us know what the decision making process was or what the decision making process may have been when apparently these balloons strayed over the continental united states. >> democratic jim himes disagrees, saying they have yet to hear the extent of what was gained by watching and waiting. expect the criticism from the right to be loud especially for the next 24 hours. tomorrow is the state of the union. unfortunate timing for the biden team who were hoping to keep the focus on the economy and jobs. where they have some pretty decent numbers. we've got details on what president biden plans to say on that topic in a moment. also, reaction on both a lawmaker and a newly formed select committee focusing on china, and the president's former press secretary is as well. and a former cia china analyst tells us what in the world china was trying to gain by floating their spy ware in front of us.

joining me now, nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali, and nbc news senior white house correspondent kelly o'donnell. let me play for you what republicans are saying about the spy balloon and the administration's reaction to it. >> the u.s. had to see this coming and decided they couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it early on. >> imagine how this would have played out if nobody had taken any pictures of the balloon f nobody in montana had looked up and noticed this giant balloon. >> the president was paralyzed for an entire week by a balloon. >> the president taking it down over the atlantic is sort of like the quarterback sort of like tackling the quarterback after the game is over. >> they have their talking points, ali. put this all into context for us politically speaking on capitol hill right now at this moment. >> well, you're right, katy, if we're talking along political line, republicans are seizing on this moment as an attempt to make it a referendum on joe biden's leadership capability, on the world stage, on the way

china perceives him, in their words a weak leader. they're doing that on the back drop of the united states. the biden administration will likely keep the focus on jobs, on the economy, on the things they were able to accomplish for the last two years in congress when they held both the house and senate. we are watching republicans try it make this an inflection point moment on the world stage around president biden. you're also seeing democrats saying they want more information on this. it's about to be briefing season on capitol hill as lawmakers come back to town this week. the gang of 8, so far their staff have been briefed. they're clamoring for more information. we're expect to go see hearings being announced on this. senator jon tester of montana said last week, he was expecting not just to be briefed but potentially put forward a hearing to get more information into the public view about how this came to be.

you're right, republicans are trying to make this a referendum on biden's leadership, even democrats are saying why did we find out so late. >> the biden administration says the reason they didn't want to shoot it down earlier is they didn't want to hurt anybody or damage infrastructure. it's 200 feet tall. the payload attached to it was similar in size to a regional jet liner, weighing more than 2,000 pounds. the debris field at the moment after it was shot down over the ocean is about 1,500 meters by 1,500 meters, in other words, for us americans who don't do the metrics system, 15 football fields by 15 football fields. it clearly would have had a very big zone of potential damage, and when you say that the payload was similar in size to a jet, the idea of a jet crashing somewhere into the united states does put it into some perspective for you.

but the white house didn't tell the american public about this, and from my understanding, lawmakers, either, until people saw it over montana. they knew about it before then, but they didn't tell anyone until it was spotted by the public. why is that? >> that's one of the questions the administration needs to answer more forcefully. the president said he was briefed, and he made a decision, and behind the scenes we have been hearing from a lot of his top officials about some of the decision making process and the fact that they've reached out to allies and looking at the numbers that you just laid out, this is one of those controversies and rare in many ways, that it's very accessible for all of us to kind of understand this in ways we don't often find. if you talk about a clash, potential clash with china, it's hard to picture it in such vivid terms. here people could see this with their own eyes.

they can see the video of it for those who weren't in the path of this balloon, and at the same time, can't imagine sort of the weight and scope of what you described of the payload and the equipment involved. people can relate to what this means. if it had come raining down at full speed after being sort of destroyed by a missile, there would have been damage, and so the biden administration said it created it was better to wait until it was just offshore and that the chances of recovering usable data from the chinese equipment was greater if it went into water versus hitting land. that's part of the calculation there. but there are other questions. when was the president first notified? when was the administration aware of other balloons that have been now there's a better sense of where they have been and the fact that they existed during the trump administration, that the trump administration

didn't know about. so there are questions here, and it's one of those situations where the president has forcefully said when the decision was made, but this wasn't as much of a build up while things were percolating, and for republicans, it has given them a chance to say they're glad he shot it down. they agree with that decision, but plenty of room for them to be critical about the time line, and other issues. so it makes for that kind of an easy political argument, with much more serious and complex issues beneath it, and that is the tense relationship between the u.s. and china, and expect that some of this will be reflected in the president's remarks to congress and the nation tomorrow night. >> it's easy to start spinning in the absence of more concrete information, and we're still waiting on that as are lawmakers, ladies, thank you very much for starting us off. and joining us know is the ranking member on the newly formed house select committee on

the strategic competition between the u.s. and chinese communist party, also a member of the house intelligence committee, very good to have you with us, congressman. >> thank you, katy. >> what can you think about reasons, motivations, for china to put this out in front of us, to make sure the public saw what they were doing? >> i don't know. what we know is the ccp has used these high altitude balloons at other times. it appears they did it three times during the trump administration. we see they have claimed responsibility for the balloon that's flying over latin network, and of course the balloon that flew over our country. you know, they basically are trying to use different tools for this type of surveillance over strategic sites, whether they are using satellites or high altitude balloons around the world. >> their reaction to the u.s.

shooting it down, china's reaction to us shooting it down is that it was unnecessary, and they've called it a provocation. are you concerned about a tit for tat here, and what could that be? >> i think the provocation was sending this high altitude balloon over american airspace, violating our sovereignty, and president biden was well within his rights to agree with his military leaders who decided to shoot it down off the coast of the carolinas. i'm hopeful that the chinese don't do anything further. but at the same time, we have to be prepared for anything with the chinese communist party. >> how big of a deal is this that they did this? >> i think that it's kind of a brazen violation of our sovereignty. and i think that they tend to throw their elbows in their own neighborhood, whether it's in the south china sea or with regard to taiwan, and perhaps they were trying to push their luck with us, and i think that

they have to recognize that we are unified on a bipartisan basis in saying that that is absolutely unacceptable, and i think we're going to stand with our president in his final decision to shoot down the balloon. >> how do you feel about the president not telling the american public sooner, and not telling lawmakers sooner? >> well, i don't want to pass judgment until i get more information from the white house with regard to their decision making. we know that during the trump years, a balloon from the ccp had transitted the u.s. three times, i'm not questioning why we weren't notified or the american public wasn't notified. at the end of the day, i'm waiting to hear answers from the biden administration. overall, i was very pleased with the outcome. >> you say we know it happened during the trump administration, officials from the trump administration say they don't know about this. where are you getting that

information, is it just from the pentagon saying it or have you seen the evidence? >> no, it's from the pentagon reports. basically it's puzzling to me that trump administration officials might disagree with regard to this particular situation, but nevertheless, the main point is the chinese communist party is sending these high altitude balloons and it doesn't matter which party is in the white house. we have to unify now because, you know, a divided american people is exactly when our adversaries want. >> do you foresee a conflict, a armed conflict with china in the coming years as that one air force general warned his officers in the memo exclusively obtained by nbc news? >> sure. i hope not. you know, basically what we know is what cia director burns said the other day, which is that he has ordered the people's deliberation army to be ready for a military invasion of taiwan by 2027, which is only

four years away. and so in that time frame, we have to do everything we can to work with our partners, allies and friends in the region, including the people of taiwan to prepare themselves and to help with their self-defense to make sure they can discourage and deter aggression from the chinese party. at the end of the day, we don't want a cold war, hot war or open hostility with the ccp. that's what we should work toward with our allies, friends and partner. >> congressman, thank you so much for joining us today. appreciate it. joining me is a former cia china analyst who served as a top white house aide to president george w. bush. dennis wilder joins us. dennis, thanks for being here with us. >> i'm going to ask you the same question i started with with the congressman, can you figure out any reason why the chinese communist party would want to be so brazen about this, would want everyone to see this? >> well, first of all, this is

an actually by chinese intelligence so it's by the people's liberation army, and one of the things that i would caution people is we don't really know whether the top leadership knew exactly what was going on. china has a very stove pipe system, and these people in the military are extremely aggressive and hard line. as a former intelligence officer, i can tell you that chinese intelligence operations against this country are very aggressive. they have stolen all kinds of information on american citizens. they have stolen our military secrets off of computers, they have recruited spies within our defense corporations, and so while the american people could obviously see this particular action, there have been plenty of runups to this event. it's just that most americans aren't aware of it. >> there is so much as you just

laid out, so why would they want us to see it? was it deliberate for us to see it or did it just get lower than they thought it would? >> well, first of all, again, the intelligence people may have thought because they had run other operations like this, you mentioned the three operations during the trump administration that seemed to go unnoticed, they may have thought they could get away with this. the strange thing is the timing because president xi jinping wanted that visit by secretary blinken, president xi is trying to rip open china after the zero covid. he wants american business people back in china. he doesn't want the supply chains to go away from china. and so you have to ask whether he was informed of this specific mission. it may be something of a rogue operation by chinese intelligence. >> i mean, i can't imagine a rogue operation in this country.

how does it work over there? i mean, he is more powerful than our president, arguably. he's got more control over that country without, you know, different branches of government doing oversight. how is it possible that president xi wouldn't know about something like this, and he didn't know, you know would something happen to those intelligence officials who maybe launched this? >> oh, i think they're in trouble, but i can give you many examples. let me just give you one. when secretary gates went to china in 2011, the chinese military right before he met with the chinese president rolled out their new stealth fighter, clearly an attempt to embarrass him and ruin the visit. secretary gates confronted the chinese president with this information and said, what were you trying to do here, and the president of china had no idea, it was clear in that meeting to robert gates, that the president

had no idea that the chinese military had done this, and he turned to his military aides and asked them, is this true. and we've seen other incidents like this, so it's very possible in the chinese system that is stove piped, he may have approved general operations of this sort. he probably was briefed on the fact that they were doing these kinds of things, but this particular mission at this particular time, i have some real doubts that he knew. >> dennis wilder, thank you very much for joining us. appreciate your insight. and joining me now is msnbc host and former white house press secretary jen psaki. good to have you. >> good to be here in person. >> i know. in person. i feel so privileged. should the secretary of state have gone to china anyway? what would be the harm in still sending him to china, secretary blinken, to have those economic meetings, to have those diplomatic meetings? >> they had to make a decision in a split moment.

the trip was planned. he was about to leave. this was a really important trip for president xi jinping. it's possible that tony blinken could reschedule the trip. in the moment, they didn't know enough. they needed to learn more, and they didn't want to reward the chinese when they were still learning more. >> i was on the phone with brian niese, talking about the state of the union. biden wanted the state of the union to be about the economy because the numbers are looking good. unemployment is at a low not seen since the 1970s or '60s. they've got inflation going down, the fed not raising rates as much as it was. there were things he could hold on to. infrastructure bill is working in places. now he has to adjust to china. how do you come at china and talk about the need to push back on their influence, the need to shore up our intelligence gathering and our, you know, strengthening against china, but

also maintain that diplomatic relation with the country that is our biggest economic trade partner. >> look, i mean, the speech is still going to be largely about the economy. that's the issue people in the country care about. that's what they want to hear about. that's the story the white house wants to tell, as well as how the president wants to unify the country. when you ask them, they say unity, unity, that's what the speech is about. on china, there's always a chunk of the speech on foreign policy, the national security, jake sullivan wants more of it on national security than always is allowed. i'm certain china will be mentioned. i do not think chinese balloon is going to be a big part of the speech, but how president biden sees it is the best way to combat or compete with china is to strengthen our economy at home. it actually is all connected. the more he can tell the story of how well the country is doing, how well his plan for continuing to innovate and grow

the economy, the more it has to do with china. >> there's going to be tension about shoring up the workplace, making the supply chain more enduring, building at home, rather than sending it overseas. when he talks about it in regard to china, there will be tension? >> of course. i think in a lot of ways, the chinese balloon, it brought to the surface this relationship and this very complicated tense relationship with china. china's been spying on the united states for decades. >> and we spy on china. >> yes, exactly. and we spy on china. we have a tense relationship about a range of issues, human rights to the economic trade craft to how they operate in technology. this is an opportunity to talk about those components of the relationship but i think the balloon is just a symbol of a very complicated and very important relationship that the united states has that is at a

steadying hopefully point. >> so you're previewing the state of the union special and you have some interviews that you did for it, can you walk us through it? >> i gathered together a couple of good friends, my favorite speech writers, and we talked about the speech, you how prepare for one of those. it's important, and it's the most painful speech you work on in the white house. what easy traps you can fall into it. there's so much that president biden wants to talk about. it's very easy for a speech like this to fall into a trap like let me give you a list of everything i have accomplished and all of the bills i have passed. that would be a mistake. what people want to hear at home is really what you've done for them, and what you're going to do for them moving forward. we talked about all of those topics. cody keenan, who was a speech writer for president obama for all eight years told me some of

the tricks of the trade, including cabinet members would leave him a bottle of bourbon to get things in the speech. we had a good time. >> we have some of the sound, let's play it. >> now you've got them sneaking ideas in. one morning i came in, there was a bottle of bourbon with a note, saying don't forget the department of education. which i appreciated. there were people that did stake out the bathroom in the west wing. if i had to come out and go to the bathroom, listen, i have a great idea for a speech. i was like, listen, it's in four hours. >> he didn't give me that. i don't know that he's that discriminating, though he also said i want my mom to know i'm not a huge drinker, as we keep bringing up bourbon all the time. this gives you a sense of kind of the stress on these speech writers and the whole system in the white house as they're preparing. >> when i was talking to brian deese, the overall message was trying to be hopeful. acknowledging, it's a tough few years, and americans are pessimistic about a lot of

stuff, partially come out of the pandemic and worried and anxious for the future but the team is going to try to show the progress that has been made, and the moment we're in where things are starting to look more hopeful and reason to be hope. can he do that tomorrow in front of a divided congress and republicans that might not be giving him anything? >> that's true. i think there's two audiences, there's the audience we'll all watch who's sitting in the room, and we'll see the seesaw effect when people stand up and clap for some things, and others sit down for others, but a big part of the audience for this is the public. and that's on the minds of the people in the white house and my former colleagues i have talked to. yes, you need to say what you have done and what you have accomplished but as brian told you, you also need to lay out a vision for why people should, as much as it's not a political speech, give him another four years, and i think people will hear some of the themes in his speech.

>> we'll see, i'd be surprised if not. but i don't know until he makes the announcement. >> for more of jen's insight, watch jen psaki, state of the union preview. and catch her on the 11th hour, for a special round table discussion hosted by my friend stephanie ruhle at 11:00 p.m. on msnbc. next, we're going live to south carolina with the effort to fish out the remains of the spy balloon. what china did today in response to the u.s. destroying it. turkey's president is calling it the country's largest disaster in more than 80 years. two massive earthquakes hit turkey and syria killing thousands. what could make efforts to find survivors harder. and george santos is facing new allegations, evening more. what a prospective staffer is claiming the freshman congressman did. claiming the freshman congressman did. ♪ ♪ [ cat purrs ] [ phone vibrates ] introducing astepro allergy.

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close to 15,000 search and rescuers are looking for survivors after two powerful earthquakes devastated parts of turkey and syria. the first, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake felt across four countries monday morning and a separate 7.5 magnitude quake hours later. more than 2,700 people are dead, and more than 14,000 people are injured, those numbers, though, are expected to rise. most of the damage is in turkey, where president erdogan called the quakes the country's worst seismic event since 1939. on local television, a turkish reporter rushed to the rescue of a small child during one of the 145 after shocks the region has experienced throughout the day. joining me now is nbc news correspondent meagan fitzgerald, the stories that we're hearing out of turkey and syria are just

awful, and they're worried about more tremors and bad weather now as well? >> reporter: absolutely. it's absolutely devastating when you're looking at what's happening on the ground, at you mentioned, the weather, it's the depths of winter that's taking place right now. president erdogan saying earlier in the day, the conditions are impacting search and rescue missions. so thousands of search and rescue people are on the ground digging through the rubble, desperately trying to find people that are trapped underneath, and when you take a look at these images coming in, the devastation, you know, it's hard to believe that people even survived, but we have reports that there are people trapped under who are screaming for help, and first responders quickly trying to get to them to fulfill this mission of rescuing people. we are seeing a similar situation in syria where we know that the entire country has activated the military to the northeastern part of the country, to try and help and save lives. we heard from the civil defense spokesperson earlier today on

the verge of tears, asking for global support. the world is listening. we know that, you know, there are resources going to the region right now from european union country, from the united states, even war torn ukraine is deploying resources to help. this is a global effort to try and help the people of syria and turkey, katy. >> the president is expected to speak to president erdogan at some point today, a call is imminent. meagan fitzgerald, thank you so much. emergency crews are trying to avoid a possibly catastrophic explosion where a train carrying hazardous materials has been burning for a fourth day. federal investigators are working to find out why 150 car trains derailed on a straight track near the pennsylvania border. officials fear explosion could release toxic gas and chemical, linked to cancer into the air, ground, and water supply, and if it should explode, officials

warn it could send deadly shrapnel a mile away. to alleviate that risk, the risk of explosion, norfolk southern railroad is planning a controlled burn to release the chemicals starting around 3:30 today. local sheriffs now warn that anyone found in the emergency evacuation radius will be arrested and anyone with children would face child endangerment charges. and george santos may be in trouble again, what he's accused of doing this time. first up, though, we're live in south carolina where the u.s. navy is on an urgent mission to find what is left of that shot down spy balloon. what the remains could tell u.s. intelligence. l u.s. intelligence

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the navy and the air force are working together to recover what's left of the chinese spy balloon, divers are in the water off south carolina trying to fish out what they can. hoping to get enough to hand over to u.s. intelligence. officials are also asking the public and local authorities to

be on the lookout for anything that might wash ashore. joining me now from myrtle beach is nbc news correspondent george solis. what are they doing, and what exactly are they looking for in the water? >> reporter: good afternoon, katy, we have new reporting on the ongoing recovery efforts. we know that military divers are in the water with robotic equipment to basically survey the area, a debris field that we know is about 15 by 15 football fields wide. you can imagine that's a large area that they have to look at it. we know they couldn't go into the water yesterday because the water and the weather is a bit choppy. we know there's two navy ships out there looking for debris, one of which is using sonar capability to map out the underwater, pentagon saying that a lot of debris fell in shallow water, 42 feet of water. the recovery should be fairly easy. we know there's as many as three

coast guard cutters and military airport providing security. one thing you did mention, as the debris is walking on shores, officials stressing, certainly don't touch it, and don't bring it home. doing so could be mean you are interfering with the federal investigation. >> joining me is rand corporation senior technical analyst, formal naval aviator, brynn tannehill. talk to me about how they did it? >> the u.s. used a pair of f-22 raptors who flew in a heading of 140, their most advanced fighters in u.s. inventory. they fired x side winder, apparently, an altitude of

52,000 feet, and intercepted the balloon somewhere between 62 and 64,000 feet, looking back at some of the difficulties i described. the balloon being at a lower altitude and its normal operating altitude, something close to 90,000 feet made this easier. the fact that it was over water meant that there was no danger of hitting people on the ground or hitting infrastructure. it also meant the u.s. had five days to weaponear whatever weapons were being used to deal with the warheads, deal with the fusing, if any, deal with issues with doppler, issues with targeting. and it looks -- the operation seemed to go very smoothly. >> and so now divers are trying to recover what they can from the ocean. again, i think we want to stress just how big this thing was. we talked about three city buses on friday. we got more details. it's 200 feet tall, the payload attached to it was similar in size to a regional jet liner,

weighing more than 2,000 pounds. the debris field, as george just said is 15 football fields by 15 football fields, so when they're in the water looking for all of this, what specifically can you tell us that they are keeping an eye out for. >> so they're going to be keeping an eye out for anything that appears to be part of the gondola, particularly anything that would be related to antennas, sensors, cameras, electronics. these are going to be the most important items. things like solar panels are going to be of lesser importance so is the infrastructure of the gondola. however, just about anything that you recover can be used to give you insight into the balloon itself because it let you know whether it was military equipment, whether it was commercial off the shelf, if you know it's commercial off the shelf, it gives you insight into how it communicates, how it operates, what its capabilities

are, how it communicates, i think it's going to be useful for the u.s., handling it over for foreign military exploitation, taking military equipment studying it to get better understanding of it, which the u.s. has done when we captured equipment. >> the biden administration said while it was flying, they were gathering information on it. and that they lessened its ability to do its damage, now that we have had a weekend to look into this a little bit more, can you give us an idea of what the biden administration means by that? >> there's a lot of openings, there could be jamming, electronic deception measures put in place to give it false signals. there could have been u.s. facilities employing emissions control to limit what kind of things it could receive. there also could have been military deception by moving things on the ground. until the air, we have seen a steady stream of u.s.

reconnaissance aircraft monitoring the balloons. some of which have signals intelligence, and electronics intelligence capabilities to monitor what sort of signals the balloon might be sending out and potentially receiving. this gives the u.s. insight into what the balloon is doing, what its capabilities are, and potentially how to counter it. the fact that the u.s. says that there was no significant risk indicates that the department of defense believes they have successfully jammed it or neutralized its capabilities in some way. however, they're not going to be specific about techniques, procedures, and capabilities. >> no doubt about that, brynn tannehill, thank you very much. >> the balloon was shot down saturday at 2:35 p.m., at 11:30 p.m., katy tur reports got a live exclusive. >> good evening, it's good to be with you, i'm katy tur, and our

long national nightmare is over. we got the balloon. i'm surprised you're still floating. experts were saying you're the size of three buss? gl. >> okay. ouch. i'm a balloon, so that's my body. how would you like it if someone measured your width in buses. sorry i'm not camera ready, oh great, who's this. no, huh-uh. get away. >> congrats to the snl wardrobe team for being so precise that they even pulled together my outfit from friday afternoon, and to chloe fineman for doing a spot on katy tur. a couple is arrested for planning an attack on baltimore's power grid, what law enforcement says was behind it. first up, a new complaint against already embattled congressman george santos, what a prospective aide said the freshman congressman did. a pros esfrhman congressman did when you shop wayfair's big furniture sale you get deals so big...

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a former prospective staffer to congressman george santos is accusing him of sexual harassment and ethics violations. in a letter sent to the committee, derek myers accused congressman santos of groping him. he's asking for an investigation into whether correct procedure was followed related to his volunteer status in the office. joining me now is nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. explain the complaint and what happens next. >> reporter: the only reason we know about this, is derek meyer, the man making the accusation has been so public about it. he posted the letter he sent to the house ethics committee, where he details this incident that took place in santos' office. it came against the back drop of myers claiming he had been promised a job in santos' office, working as a volunteer,

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a known neo-nazi leader has been quietly making plans to attack baltimore's power grid according to federal authorities. brandon russell seen in this mug shot after being arrested for having bomb making materials was back in court today, and the fbi says he was not alone. a maryland woman conspired to shoot electrical substations in baltimore, a city where more than 60% of residents black. nbc news senior legal correspondent laura jarrett is following the story. the authorities say they were

racially motivated. >> it's interesting. this could have been a serious disaster for maryland's residents had this couple not been stopped, and it appears at least when the charging documents, the way authorities really got to them was through a confidential informant. they are having conversations, making active plans, talking about the guns they made, talking about the way to inflict maximum damage by doing this in the winter time, knowing peemg people are so reliant on power. it's interesting to note that brandon russell is someone well known to law enforcement, as you mentioned, an avowed neo-nazi, someone on the radar for quite some time. he recently had gotten out of prison. he had been prosecuted before for having explosive materials. the woman he met while she was also in prison, sarah clendaniel, in prison on a separate charge for armed robbery. take a listen to how federal authorities described their plans earlier today. >> russell provided instructions and location information.

he described attacking the power transformers as the greatest thing somebody can do. in her own words, clindaniel said she was determined to do this. she added, it would lay this city to waste. their actions threaten the electricity and heat of our homes, hospitals, and businesses. >> of course, one of the big questions had been part of a larger plot. we have seen several different shootings at power stations across the country. authorities were asked about that today, and at least as of now, it's not appeared to be connected to a larger scheme or plot. obviously if they would have gone through it, it would have inflicted substantial damage. >> this was another threat to power stations across the country, there were already two other attacks, have they apprehended the suspects in those attacks, have they found anybody? >> they have not. do they even have suspects. >> if they do, we haven't seen

that, and as you mentioned, like they caused maximum damage for those residents, tens of thousands of people were left without power in the winter time because of those attacks. >> if he goes to jail again after the second charge. does that mean his sentence would be extended? >> effectively, although it would be for a separate charge. we'll see what he's facing. the judge would be the one who decides that. he's facing up to 20 years in prison if convicted on this particular charge. >> laura jarett, thank you very much for bringing this story. scary as it is. and one of the most powerful last names. that's not for me. that is going to do it for me. hallie jackson picks up our coverage next. llie jackson pick coverage next. nucala is a once-monthly add-on treatment for severe eosinophilic asthma that can mean less oral steroids. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions,

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developing news as we come on the air. a massive search and rescue operation, new details on that supply balloon, and some real life disney drama. up first, the scramble right now overseas with crews sifting through debris across turkey and syria where it's now the middle of the night, trying to find survivors of the region's worst earthquake in decades, potential after shocks, making the whole thing more complicated. we have a live report in minute. the state department giving an update on the status of u.s. china relations, and spoiler alert, they're kind of on ice with the pentagon sharing new details about the spy balloon, comparing it to the seize of a regional plane. what else we're learning as the search keeps up. what's left of this