ABC anchor calls out Sen. Marco Rubio during tense exchange over Chinese spy balloon: 'This happened 3 times under the previous president
Cheryl Teh
Sun, February 5, 2023
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
ABC's Jonathan Karl called out Sen. Marco Rubio during a tense exchange about the Chinese spy balloon.
Rubio said Biden should not have "waited so long" to tell people about the balloon.
But Karl said Trump did not disclose three balloon sightings that happened during his term.
ABC anchor Jonathan Karl called out Sen. Marco Rubio during a tense exchange on Sunday about the Chinese spy balloon.
During Rubio's appearance on ABC's "This Week," the Florida senator was asked if President Joe Biden should have acted against the military's advice and shot the suspected spy balloon down over the US mainland. The balloon was spotted floating over Montana, near a nuclear missile base.
Rubio conceded that falling debris from the balloon "could hurt, harm, or kill people." But the senator also hit out at Biden for what he said was weakness in the face of China's provocations.
"I don't know why they waited so long to tell people about this, and they knew the trajectory that it was on it seems from late last week, or early last week," said Rubio, the vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.
In response, Karl said former President Donald Trump did not disclose three different sightings of Chinese balloons during his term.
"And we're also told, by the way, that this happened three times under the previous president," Karl said. "Obviously, there were no public notifications there."
The Chinese balloon in question was shot down by the Air Force over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday. And while Republicans have argued that Trump would have shot down the balloon sooner to send a message to China, senior Pentagon officials said on Saturday that balloons from China moved into US air space at least three times during Trump's term. The officials did not say if these balloons were shot down.
"PRC government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time," a senior defense official said at the Pentagon's news conference.
Trump has denied that any balloons crossed into US airspace during his term.
"It never happened with us under the Trump administration and if it did, we would have shot it down immediately," Trump told Fox News Digital. "It's disinformation."
Trump has also been ranting about the Chinese balloon on his Truth Social page.
"The Chinese would never have floated the Blimp ("Balloon") over the United States if I were President!!!" Trump wrote on Sunday night.
Representatives for Rubio and Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Donald Trump Tries to Deny That Spy Balloons Also Flew Over U.S. During His Presidency
Corbin Bolies
Sun, February 5, 2023
Gaelen Morse/Reuters
Donald Trump tried to deny reports on Sunday that China launched spy balloons over the U.S. during his presidency, saying the claims were an attempt to deflect embarrassment over the half-week debacle.
Three other spy balloons have traveled over the continental U.S. in the past, officials told the Associated Press, including twice during the Trump administration. That has not stopped Trump and his acolytes, such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, from claiming otherwise.
Video Shows Chinese Balloon Being Shot Down Over Atlantic Ocean
“The Chinese Balloon situation is a disgrace, just like the Afghanistan horror show, and everything else surrounding the grossly incompetent Biden Administration. They are only good at cheating in elections, and disinformation,” Trump said in a post on his social network Truth Social.
“And now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the ‘heat’ off the slow moving Biden fools. China had too much respect for ‘TRUMP’ for this to have happened, and it NEVER did.”
But U.S. officials said Saturday that the Chinese spy balloon—which spawned the most-watched news event since last year’s Super Bowl—was not the first of its kind.
Still, that did not stop Trump from employing his tried-and-true line of defense: labeling facts he does not care for as fake news.
“JUST FAKE DISINFORMATION!” he wrote.
Suspected Chinese Spy Balloons
Crossed Into U.S. 3 Times During
Trump Administration
Suspected spy balloons from China crossed into the continental United States at least three times while Donald Trump was president, according to a statement Saturday by the Department of Defense citing an unnamed “senior defense official.”
“Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration,” the statement said. The Associated Press also reported that one other balloon crossed into the U.S. earlier in the Biden administration.
None of those four incursions reportedly lasted as long as the trip by the suspected spy balloon that the U.S. military shot down Saturday. And none of the other balloons were apparently blown out of the sky, though that was not immediately confirmed.
In spite of the visits from possible spy balloons while Trump was in office, many Republicans have complained that President Joe Biden didn’t order the most recent balloon shot down quickly enough — or that he shouldn’t have allowed the balloon to enter U.S. airspace to begin with.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed that Trump would never have allowed a Chinese spy balloon to reach the U.S.
“Would Trump have let China fly a spy balloon over our country?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked on Twitter.
Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told AP that Chinese surveillance balloons were sighted several times in the past five years. Some of them have been spotted near U.S. military bases in Hawaii, he said, though he did not specify when.
In a message Friday on Truth Social, Trump himself joined the call for the Biden administration to destroy the most recent craft, saying: “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON.” But he did not discuss his own administration’s experience with suspected Chinese spy balloons.
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and likely Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley also beat up on Biden for not taking more immediate action, but likewise failed to address incidents involving balloons in the last administration.
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