Republicans seize on the opportunity to second-guess the president’s handling of the Chinese balloon in the wake of the public’s attention.
Top Republicans on Sunday criticized the Biden administration for waiting to shoot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon until it was over the ocean, arguing a more aggressive response was needed in the face of obvious Chinese provocation.
“It’s not just the balloon,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on CNN. “It’s the message they are trying to send the world: ‘We can do whatever we want and America can’t stop us.’”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) told CBS, “I think this entire episode telegraphed weakness to [President] Xi [Jinping] and the Chinese government.”
House Republicans are also reportedly considering passing a resolution criticizing President Biden’s actions in this episode on Tuesday, the day Biden delivers his annual State of the Union address. Resolutions are nonbinding, primarily symbolic statements, often delivering a message from one party to another. This resolution could pass the House, where Republicans have a slim majority. An email seeking comment from House Republicans was not immediately returned Sunday afternoon.
The balloon — whose equipment was about the size of three large buses, according to U.S. officials — was shot down Saturday, once it moved off the coast of South Carolina, ending its eight-day journey.
A senior defense official has said there have been four previous known Chinese balloon incursions over the continental United States: one early in the Biden administration and three during the Trump administration.
Rubio dismissed comparisons to previous episodes of Chinese aircraft illegally entering U.S. airspace. “What is unprecedented,” he told the network, “is a balloon flight that entered over Idaho, over Montana, all these sensitive military installations: air force bases, ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] fields, right across the middle of the country. That has never happened before.”
A device that “flew briefly over part of the U.S., or continental U.S., that’s one thing. But what we saw this week, it’s unprecedented.” He also called the response a “dereliction of duty.”
A U.S. defense official has said the balloon’s capabilities did not appear to be “over and above” those of Chinese satellites and other tools.
