Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attacked President Joe Biden Sunday in a statement after the Chinese spy balloon flew over the U.S. last week for several days.
McConnell’s statement comes after the U.S. military used an F-22 Raptor on Saturday to take out a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina using a single air-to-air A9X sidewinder missile that was fired at an altitude of approximately 58,000 feet.
“As usual when it comes to national defense and foreign policy, the Biden Administration reacted at first too indecisively and then too late,” McConnell said. “We should not have let the People’s Republic of China make a mockery of our airspace. It defies belief to suggest there was nowhere between the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and the coast of Carolina where this balloon could have been shot down right away without endangering Americans or Canadians. This was a reminder of the PRC’s brazenness and President Biden missed the opportunity to defend our sovereignty, send a message of strength, and bolster deterrence.”
According to the 80-year-old Kentucky Republican Senator, Biden noted other reports regarding Chinese spy balloons in Americas. Biden said that allies and partners were needed to fight the menace of “brazen Chinese espionage.”
“I hope the President’s belated decision to finally do the right thing carries over into his soon-to-be-released annual budget request,”McConnell added. “Whether it’s spy balloons or spy satellites, hypersonic weapons or stealth aircraft, massive naval construction or nuclear stockpile expansion, China’s military modernization effort is no joke. Last year President Biden proposed an absurd budget that would have cut defense funding after inflation. Let’s hope his budget proposal this year is more decisive, serious, and strong than the embarrassment that just played out in our skies.”
Fox News reports that Biden Administration officials believed that Chinese spy planes flew above some areas of the U.S. during the Trump administration. However, they cautioned that Trump’s administration was not aware about these incursions. Senator Tom Cotton (Republican from Arkansas) suggests that the Chinese spy ballons may not have been detected until Trump had left the White House. “only learned about them in retrospect by studying historical data.”
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