U.S. Military Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon; Senator Says China Sent Balloon to Send ‘a Message’: They Believe U.S. Is ‘in Decline’

By Townhall. The U.S. military shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon on Saturday as it made its way over the Atlantic Ocean.

Shortly after the government announced the Chinese spy balloon was shot down, President Joe Biden said he authorized the Pentagon to do so days ago.

“I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible,” Biden told reporters on Saturday, adding “they decided without doing any damage to people on the ground they decided that the best time to do that was when it got over water outside within a 12 mile limit.”

Biden continued to claim that he ordered them to shoot down the balloon on Wednesday, adding “they said to me let’s wait for the safest place to do it.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the president did give him orders to take the balloon down on a few days ago, however, the military decided to wait until the surveillance balloon was no longer a risk to American lives. (Read more from “U.S. Military Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon” HERE)

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Rubio Says China Sent Balloon to Send ‘a Message’: They Believe U.S. Is ‘in Decline’

By ABC News. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that despite China’s claims otherwise, they sent a balloon into the U.S. to send a message about the country’s sway across the globe.

“The key part here is they knew exactly what they were doing and there was a message behind it,” Rubio told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.

“They understood that it [the balloon] was going to be spotted, they knew the U.S. government would have to reveal it, that people were gonna see it over the sky. And the message they were trying to send is what they believe internally, and that is that the United States is a once-great superpower that’s hollowed out, it’s in decline,” Rubio said.

The balloon’s presence over Montana caused the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a ground stop for the Billings airport on Wednesday. But U.S. officials only announced the vessel was over the country late Thursday, after it had already flown down from Alaska. The military chose to wait to strike the balloon until the risk to civilians was minimized, defense officials have said. (Read more from “Rubio Says China Sent Balloon to Send ‘a Message’: They Believe U.S. Is ‘in Decline'” HERE)

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