Biden faces storm of criticism over Chinese spy balloon incursion
Haisten Willis
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Hours before President Joe Biden is set to deliver the State of the Union address, he is in the spotlight for a more negative reason: his handling of the Chinese spy balloon discovered in U.S. airspace.
Several Republicans have come out with harsh words for the president, saying should have taken the balloon down earlier, should have informed the public earlier, and even suggesting the Chinese floated the balloon over the United States on purpose as a show of defiance.
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“It’s not a coincidence that this happens leading up to the State of the Union address, leading up to [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken’s visit to China,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) over the weekend. “The Chinese knew that this was going to be spotted. They knew that we were going to have to react to it.”
And China knew the reaction under Biden would be weak, Rubio added.
“The message embedded in this to the world is, ‘We can fly a balloon over airspace of the United States of America, and you won’t be able to do anything about it to stop us,'” he said. “They calculated this carefully with a message embedded in it. And I think that’s the part we can’t forget here. It’s not just the balloon. It’s the message to try to send the world that America: ‘We can do whatever we want, and America can’t stop us.’”
The public learned of the balloon’s existence after it was spotted by passengers and photographed by the Billings Gazette in Montana. But Bloomberg reported that the White House knew of the balloon several days prior and opted not to take any overt action or inform the public.
Even after the balloon gained national press attention, it was allowed to fly completely across the continental U.S. before being shot down once it cleared the coast of South Carolina.
That led to fierce criticism in GOP circles.
“I just spoke with our GREAT America First President Trump,” firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said in a tweet. “He would have never allowed China to fly a spy balloon over our country and our military bases and assets. Pres Trump would have shot it down before it entered the US. And so would I.”
The Pentagon has claimed that similar balloons flew over or near the U.S. three times during the Trump administration, something Trump-era officials fiercely deny.
Another criticism related to inaction is that Blinken’s trip to China wasn’t canceled until the situation became public, leading some to wonder if it was simply the public relations headache that led to Blinken staying put rather than any real alarm over the balloon.
Biden’s strategy with the balloon is indeed a sharp contrast with Trump, argues Democratic strategist Michael Stratton, and one for which the public should be grateful.
“Biden is stable and patient, and he took in all accounts before they shot this thing down,” he said. “Biden took his time — he made an informed decision along with the military and took their recommendation to wait until it was over water.”
Trump may have shot the balloon down right away, Stratton added, but that would have been a testament to his impulsiveness and irresponsibility rather than any praiseworthy qualities.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made a similar argument during Monday’s press briefing, saying the administration simply went with the best and most practical choice.
“Shooting the balloon down over water wasn’t just the safest option; it maximized the chance of recovering the payload, giving us a better chance to get information from the Chinese surveillance balloon,” she said.
Eric Gomez, a policy scholar at the Cato Institute, agreed that GOP criticism was likely unwarranted.
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“Biden could have been more aggressive and overruled the military’s advice,” he said. “However, I am not convinced that such a course of action would have produced better outcomes for overall U.S. security.”