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President Biden on Tuesday referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a dictator who suffered a “great embarrassment” when one of his spy balloons sailed over the US without his knowledge earlier this year.
The 80-year-old president made the remarks during a fundraiser in Kentfield, Calif., one day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Xi in China on a trip aimed at easing tensions between Washington and Beijing that have soared since the balloon flyover.
“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn’t know it was there,” Biden claimed at the fundraiser.
“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course,” the president added.
