possible explosives to deflate the balloon. gillian: in a moment, karine jean-pierre will be asked questions why the president waited nearly a week to shoot it down. john: we will bring you the white house briefing when it begins. john roberts in washington, good to kick the week off with you. gillian: you, too, john. i m gillian turner in for sandra smith. the president said ordered the military to take out the balloon after it had been drifting for days. they say the military should have listened. he projected weakness at this moment. i think the administration lacks urgency. became a situation of argument and everybody wondering what is the administration doing. this is a wake-up call for the country. gillian: john kirby pushed back, said it gave the u.s. time to study the balloon, as well as chinese s motives. john: seems clear china s motive is to replace the united states as the leading superpower. a list of how china has provoked and escalated tension
we really don t have a problem of fentanyl killing our children, everybody is really economically happy, afghanistan was a great success, i think they called it largest airlift in history. the fact is that we were very clever and allowed the chinese balloon to go all the way across the country finishing its mission before we shot it down. i think what what s he going to say? look, presidents have to come into the state of the union, they have to be positive, they have to tout their accomplishments and then call for even better future. he ll do that, the biggest question in my mind, he and speaker mccarthy have had a decent conversation recently, does he come in and pick a fight with republicans or come in and reach out an olive branch and say we ought to be able to work together and i think that s a very big decision for biden. is he going to be the democratic leader running for re-election, or is he going to be the president of the united states trying to work with the new republica