To watch Daines’ remarks, click HERE.
U.S. SENATE – U.S. Senator Steve Daines today delivered remarks at the weekly Republican Senate Leadership press conference slamming President Biden for his mishandling of the Chinese spy balloon debacle and called on the Administration to provide answers on how China was able to acquire American technology that was used to spy on Montanans.
“We’ve seen over the course of the first half of the year that a circus clown is better at handling balloons than the Biden administration. As if a Chinese spy balloon flying over Montana over our nuclear missiles and over the entire country wasn’t enough, we have now learned it was using U.S. technology to spy on the United States.
“In the most brazen act of espionage, the Chinese Communist Party literally used our own equipment against us. Now, China claimed it was a weather balloon that went off course. Just go back and track the course of that spy balloon and it just happened to drift off course right over the most powerful weapons known to mankind and that is our intercontinental ballistic missiles, which a third are in Montana. Montanans knew that wasn’t true.
“Meanwhile, we watched this administration stand back and watch this balloon fly across the entire United States as if it was part of some kind of Taylor Swift state-to-state concert tour. The Biden administration has yet to answer any of the questions that I’ve asked to my satisfaction and these Senate hearings hosted by Senate Democrats have produced nothing. It was the Wall Street Journal that broke the story about the fact they were using U.S. technology to spy against us.
“The Biden administration has embarrassed us on the world stage. We must repair the United States image around the world and this starts with projecting strength, not weakness. This means action, not lack of action from this administration which sadly makes America look weak. I’m calling on the Department of Defense, Treasury and Commerce to investigate how China was able to acquire U.S. technology for military end-use and demanding they update Congress.
“It’s time the Biden administration starts taking ownership for their failures. I know they want that issue to go away. We’re not going to let them because of the nature of what that balloon was looking at which we’re very proud of the 341st Missile Wing out of Great Falls, Montana, Malmstrom Air Force Base. We can never ever let that happen again.”
Earlier today, Daines sent a letter to the Biden administration highlighting concerns with the recent reports that China used American technology to spy on the United States and demanded an investigation into the situation in order to prevent future violations of U.S. national security interests.