Marco Rubio: China Delivered A ‘Message Embedded In’ Sending Spy Balloon To U.S.

On Sunday, Senator Marco Rubio (R.FL.) lashed out at President Joe Biden for his controversial handling the Chinese spy balloon which flew over the U.S. over the last few days.

Rubio told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that the American people need answers about why it took the administration so long to disclose the spy balloon’s presence over U.S. territory.

“I think what’s embedded here is a clear message. 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,” Rubio said. “The Chinese knew that this was going to be spotted. They knew that we were going to have to react to it. They flew it over military installations and sensitive sites across — right across the middle. I mean, look at the flight path of this thing. It’s a diagonal shot right through the middle of the continental United States.”

“And 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 added. “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.”

TAPPER: Hello, STATE OF THE UNION. I’m Jake Tapper.

Many Republicans reacted with outrage after President Biden waited for the suspected Chinese spy balloon to leave the continental United States before shooting it down, for safety reasons, they said, at the Pentagon’s guidance.

We are joined now by the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee (Republican Senator Marco Rubio from Florida).

Thank you, Senator, for being here.

According to you, President Biden should not have taken the balloon down so soon. The defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said — quote — “After careful analysis, U.S. military commanders had determined to downing the balloon while over land posed an undue risk to people across a wide area due to the size and altitude of the balloon and its surveillance payload.”

And, as you heard Secretary Buttigieg just a few minutes ago said that the debris field after the balloon was shot down was about seven miles’ long.

Should President Biden have ordered it to be shot down anyway, regardless the risk?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO R-FL: Yes, but not regardless of the potential risk.

They can track these things. You can follow a slow moving balloon which is clearly headed this way, as you can see by its trajectory. I think that’s one of the things we will learn this week, is how soon, how late into January did they already know that there’s this high-altitude balloon and what its trajectory was and where it was headed, and why didn’t they take action at that time?

That’s number one. The other thing we need to understand and learn about this is why it took so long to reveal it to the American public. I don’t think the trajectory of where this balloon was going was a mystery. I think, pretty early on, they probably — because of the prevailing winds, because of the direction that it was headed, I think it was pretty clear that this thing was going to enter the Northwest in Montana, in Idaho, move its way down the Midwest and exit the Eastern Seaboard just off the Carolinas.

I mean, that’s an unprecedented flight path. And why did it wait until Wednesday to notify — or Thursday to talk about it the American people, knowing people were going to be seeing this thing?

TAPPER – Do you know if the U.S. has recovered any parts of the Chinese spy satellite? Has the — and did the monitoring of the balloon during its journey, as far as you know, yield any worthwhile information for the U.S.?

RUBIO: Well, we won’t know that until we get to a secure setting this week in Washington. And, probably, most of that is something we won’t be able to disclose in any great detail, other than to say this.

And that is that they’re going to try to recover this. Apparently, it’s in shallow waters. We’ll see how they recover. But I don’t think the technology or the existence of these things is a great mystery. I think what’s embedded here is a clear message. It’s not a coincidence that this happens leading up to the State of the Union address, leading up to Blinken’s visit to China.

This was a spotted by the Chinese. They knew.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases