A high altitude balloon floats over Billings, Mont., on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023. The U.S. is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been spotted over U.S. airspace for a couple days, but the Pentagon decided not to shoot it down due to risks of harm for people on the ground, officials said Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023. The Pentagon would not confirm that the balloon in the photo was the surveillance balloon. (Larry Mayer/The Billings Gazette via AP)
Republicans criticized President Joe Biden’s response to the suspected Chinese spy balloon that U.S. military fighter jets shot down Saturday.
China claimed the balloon, which had been seen flying over Montana earlier last week, was only meant for observing weather conditions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed the move to destroy the balloon was a “clear overreaction and serious violation of international practice.”
Biden was briefed on the balloon Wednesday but it was not shot down until it was flying over water Saturday, in part, because of the potential damage caused by debris.
"The president will always put the safety and security of the American people first," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday. "We are tracking closely and keeping all options on the table."
Republicans criticized the administration for waiting so long to shoot it down.
“I will be demanding answers and will hold the admin accountable for this embarrassing display of weakness,” Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said.
Sen. Marco Rubio, lead Republican on the Intelligence Committee, similarly said it sent the wrong message to the rest of the world.
“The message embedded in this to the world is we can fly a balloon over airspace of the United States of America and they won’t be able to do anything about it to stop us,” Rubio said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also criticized the president.
McConnell said in a statement Sunday that "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," he added.
But Democrats defended the administration's actions.
“We sent a clear message to China that this is not acceptable. We protected civilians. We gained more intelligence while protecting our own sensitive information,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “The bottom line here is that shooting down the surveillance balloon over water wasn't just the safest option but it was the one that maximized our intelligence payload.”
A group of eight congressional leaders on intelligence committees will receive a classified briefing this week on China and the surveillance balloon.
Senators will receive a classified briefing on February 15 with the latest intelligence on the balloon as the United States searches for debris off the South Carolina coast.
Dr. Nasia Safdar, Doctor at UW Madison, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to discuss the implications of Merck sharing its antiviral pill, which has been shown in early trials to cut hospitalizations and deaths by half, with poorer nations around the globe.
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Going into election day on Tuesday, many of us had an inkling it might not be a great day for Democrats. History tells us the president's party tends to lose congressional seats, governorships and state legislature seats in off-year and midterm elections. Tuesday turned out to be a big wake-up call for democrats. Not only did Terry McAuliffe lose in the Virginia governor's race, Gov. Phil Murphy won re-election by an incredibly slim margin. Both races saw continued Democratic losses in rural areas and a shift of suburban voters back to the GOP. Liz Landers, chief political correspondent at Vice News, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss.
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Alan Neuhauser, vice president of Silverline Communications, joined Cheddar Politics to talk more about the pledges that came out from the summit and their significance.
It's been a busy week for the Supreme Court. It heard arguments on three of the most watched cases in the docket for this term. The court heard arguments in two cases challenging the Texas abortion law on Monday - one filed by abortion providers and the other by the justice department. Instead of weighing in on the constitutionality of the matter itself, justices focused on the unusual structure of the law that enables citizens to enforce the law, not the state government.
On Wednesday, the court heard arguments in the biggest Second Amendment case in more than a decade. The dispute is over a New York gun law that requires people seeking a license to carry a handgun in public to show a "proper cause." The challengers in this case claim the law inhibits their constitutional Second Amendment rights.
Amy Howe, co-founder of SCOTUSBlog, joined Cheddar Politics to break the cases down.
This is the first installment of Cheddar Changemakers, where we spotlight young activists making a difference in the world and speaking up on issues regarding mental health, voting, and climate change.
Republicans are considered, and often act like, the party opposed to action on climate change. They've made a point of fighting even modest regulations on businesses related to stemming the worst effects of climate change. But Republicans aren't a monolith on climate change, and our next guest reminds us that "conservation" and "conservative" have the same word root.
Quill Robinson, VP of government affairs at the American Conservation Coalition, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss.
The mayor of Portland, Oregon, Ted Wheeler joined Cheddar News Wrap to discuss his plans to get an increase in the city's police budget for more personnel, changes to public safety response, and more body cameras. The Democratic mayor addressed the growth in violent crimes amid the pandemic, but noted the need for officers who take their roles seriously. We want officers who understand that policing is an important responsibility, it's a high calling," he said. "We also want a police bureau that is accountable and responsible to the public it serves."
More American tech companies continue to pull their businesses out of China as the Communist Party cracks down on firms — both foreign and domestic. Yahoo and Fortnite have become the latest companies to withdraw from the country, and the withdrawals come just days after Microsoft announced it would take LinkedIn offline. Shehzad Qazi, managing director at China Beige Book International, joined Cheddar to provide some insight into how the crackdowns in China would also impact the tech companies at home in the United States.
