The suspected Chinese surveillance balloon may be down. But the controversy manufactured by Republicans is still flying high.
The balloon first came to the public’s attention as it hovered over Montana early this week. Republicans immediately took the opportunity to attack President Joe Biden and balloon freakout took hold of the GOP.
“President Biden should stop coddling and appeasing the Chinese communists,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wrote on Twitter.
“It was a mistake to not shoot down that Chinese spy balloon when it was over a sparsely populated area,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) weighed in Friday.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called for an investigation into the balloon and Biden’s response. Even former Donald Trump advised a course of action on his social media platform Truth Social: “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!”
But once the balloon was shot down, Republicans kept up their balloonacy, unhappy that the administration had waited days to neutralize it.
“The President taking it down over the Atlantic is sort of like tackling the quarterback after the game is over,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on “Meet the Press.”
But a U.S. senior defense official said last week that spy balloons belonging to the Chinese government crossed over U.S. territory briefly at least three times during the Trump administration and the public was not informed.
The revelation threw Republicans into a frenzy as they try to attack Biden while demanding why Trump was not informed of the incidents.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Monday called for a probe into why the former president was apparently not informed of previous Chinese spy balloons that Biden officials are saying crossed over the U.S. at least three times during the previous administration.
“If it’s true the Pentagon purposely did NOT tell President Trump of Chinese Spy Balloons during his administration then we had a serious breach in command during the Trump admin,” Greene said on Twitter.
“The POTUS is the Commander in Chief. We must investigate and hold accountable those who broke rank,” the longtime Trump ally said.
The Biden administration has said it decided against shooting the latest balloon down while it was over land because it feared falling debris could hurt people on the ground. It instead shot the balloon down on Saturday after it crossed over the Atlantic Ocean.
