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February 5, 2023 Suspected China spy balloon news

By Heather Chen, Andrew Raine, Sophie Tanno, Paul LeBlanc and Rhea Mogul, CNN

Updated 3:37 a.m. ET, February 6, 2023
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2:56 p.m. ET, February 5, 2023

McConnell says Biden administration acted 'indecisively and then too late' on Chinese spy balloon 

From CNN's Aileen Graef

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to reporters during a news conference following the Republican policy luncheon meeting Jan. 31 in Washington, DC.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to reporters during a news conference following the Republican policy luncheon meeting Jan. 31 in Washington, DC. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Biden administration’s decision to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon on Saturday came “too late” and let China “make a mockery” of US airspace.

“As usual when it comes to national defense and foreign policy, the Biden Administration reacted at first too indecisively and then too late. We should not have let the People’s Republic of China make a mockery of our airspace," the Kentucky Republican said in a statement Sunday.

"It defies belief to suggest there was nowhere between the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and the coast of Carolina where this balloon could have been shot down right away without endangering Americans or Canadians," McConnell added.

"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 said.

Biden told reporters Saturday that he gave the order Wednesday to take down the balloon “as soon as possible” and that the military waited to act until it had passed over the Atlantic Ocean to avoid “doing damage to anyone on the ground.”

In his statement, McConnell cited reports of similar surveillance balloons being spotted in Latin America and elsewhere and said he would like to see the Biden administration work with US allies to defend against the "brazen Chinese espionage."

3:02 p.m. ET, February 5, 2023

Spy balloon trajectory into contiguous US raised alarm bells, triggered Biden briefing

From CNN's Phil Mattingly and Alex Marquardt

A senior administration official and a senior Pentagon official told CNN that the suspected Chinese spy balloon became a cause for more concern when it became clear on Tuesday that it would cross in the contiguous United States. 

The officials said that it was not out of the ordinary for such a balloon to come near or inside Alaskan territory, adding that such encroachments weren’t necessarily a cause for alarm. However, when the balloon took a direct path down to the lower 48 states, US officials began to realize they were dealing with a much different scenario that needed to be elevated to President Joe Biden. The Pentagon official said the fact that the balloon was loitering also drew attention.

That realization occurred Tuesday and triggered a presidential briefing with Biden on Wednesday in which military options were presented. 

The explanation of the timeline comes as Republicans have been fiercely critical of the Biden administration for not acting sooner to stop the balloon. 

The senior Pentagon official told CNN that if the balloon had followed a normal trajectory, “we would have collected on it and we would have monitored it and communicated across Canada and all stations" but added that “this thing became different when it started to loiter over Canada, then it dipped down into Idaho.” 

“One that comes down south, loiters, is controlled, is directional -- that’s different,” the official said.

1:14 p.m. ET, February 5, 2023

Gang of Eight briefing on suspected Chinese spy balloon could occur as early as Tuesday

From CNN's Manu Raju

A Gang of Eight briefing on the suspected Chinese spy balloon may occur as early as Tuesday, according to a congressional source.

The group is made up of the top Democratic and Republican leaders in both the House and Senate, as well as key Intelligence Committee members from both chambers. It is generally privy to sensitive information that the rest of Congress is not always briefed on.

A full Senate classified briefing on China will occur on February 15, the source said.

US military fighter jets shot down the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States on Saturday, ending a remarkable public drama that prompted a diplomatic fallout between Washington and Beijing.

1:58 p.m. ET, February 5, 2023

Schumer says Senate will receive comprehensive China briefing next week

From CNN's Aileen Graef

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a news conference January 25 in Washington, DC.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a news conference January 25 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Sunday that the full Senate would receive a comprehensive briefing on China next week.

“The full Senate -- all senators of both parties -- will have a larger and full China briefing next week. And that is something that I think will be very important, serious and hopefully nonpolitical,” the New York Democrat said at a news conference in Manhattan. “Under this full brief, all senators in both parties will be briefed by the Department of Defense on their office of Net Assessment (ONA) US-China Overmatch Study.”

Schumer said the briefing will include information about China’s surveillance capabilities, research and development, advanced weapons systems, and other “critical platforms.”

He also pushed back on criticism from GOP lawmakers regarding how the Biden administration handled the response to the suspected Chinese spy balloon, which was shot down Saturday over the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

“We are hearing GOP criticism of the balloon mission. That they are saying we should have shot down the balloon the minute we saw it. I would use two words in answering these GOP criticisms: They are premature and they are political.
Our friends are playing politics with US intelligence. 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. And the bottom line here is shooting down the surveillance balloon over water wasn’t just the safest option, but it was the one that maximized our intelligence payload.” 
12:43 p.m. ET, February 5, 2023

Cruz praises Biden's 'guts' in shooting down balloon but criticizes decision to wait

From CNN's Aaron Pellish

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday praised President Joe Biden for “having the guts” to shoot down the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon but said the decision to wait days “telegraphed weakness."

“I want to start by doing something that I don't do very often, which is commending Joe Biden for actually having the guts to shoot this down. That was the right thing to do. That is absolutely what the president should have done,” Cruz told CBS News.  
“Unfortunately, he didn't do that until a week after it entered US airspace. He allowed a full week for the Chinese to conduct spying operations over the United States, over sensitive military installations, exposing not just photographs but the potential of intercepted communications. And more broadly, I think this entire episode telegraphed weakness to [Chinese leader Xi Jinping] and the Chinese government,” he continued.

Biden, for his part, told reporters Saturday that he gave the order Wednesday to take down the balloon “as soon as possible” and that the military waited to act until it had passed over the Atlantic Ocean to avoid “doing damage to anyone on the ground.”  

In an interview on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reiterated Pentagon and White House talking points on the suspected spy balloon, saying that “steps were taken to prevent any problems in terms of intelligence collection."

12:23 p.m. ET, February 5, 2023

House China Committee chair says balloon incident 'makes us look weak and flat-footed'

From CNN's Aaron Pellish

The Republican chair of the newly formed House select committee on China called on the Biden administration Sunday to be more firm in its diplomatic relations with Beijing following the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon episode.

Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher told Fox News that the balloon incident “makes us look weak and flat-footed on the world stage” and implored the White House to engage with China with a renewed skepticism.

“The message I have for the Biden administration is: 'Don't fall for the Chinese Communist Party charm offensive.' It's a farce. It's a bedtime story they tell out-of-touch global elites at Davos. It's time to push back before it's too late, before something far more dangerous than a balloon is flying over American territory,” Gallagher said. 

Gallagher criticized the White House for its response to taking the balloon down, likening the balloon’s dayslong flight over the continental US to a home invasion. 

“Letting a Chinese surveillance balloon lazily drift over America is like seeing a robber on your front porch and inviting him in, showing him where you keep your safe, where you keep your guns, where your children sleep at night, and then politely asking him to leave. It makes no sense,” the congressman said. 

Gallagher said he believes the balloon “absolutely” could have been taken down after it crossed Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. He said the US should develop the capability to take down surveillance balloons easily if the military isn’t able to already. 

“If we don't have the capability to neutralize it, corral it, collect it, look under the hood and exploit it, well, that's a capability we need to develop with an $850 billion defense budget. Because I suspect it’s not the last time we're going to see a Chinese probe,” Gallagher said.
12:13 p.m. ET, February 5, 2023

House Intelligence Committee chair: 'There's no excuse' for waiting to shoot down balloon

From CNN's Morgan Rimmer

Rep. Mike Turner speaks during the House GOP news conference on December 14, 2022.
Rep. Mike Turner speaks during the House GOP news conference on December 14, 2022. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images)

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, said Sunday that "there is no excuse" for the Biden administration waiting to shoot down the suspected Chinese spy balloon before it began crossing the continental US.

“The president taking it down over the Atlantic is sort of like tackling the quarterback after the game is over. The satellite had completed its mission,” Turner told NBC News. “This should never have been allowed to enter the United States, and it never should have been allowed to complete its mission.”
He added, “They need to make clear to all our adversaries, you're not going to get to come the United States and take a tour of our most sensitive military sites, and have a free show.”

Turner told NBC News that there is a briefing scheduled for this week on the intelligence assessment of the classified documents found at former President Donald Trump’s home, and that documents discovered in President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence’s possession will also be included in the briefing.

He was not specific as to whether the briefing would be with the Intelligence Committee or the so-called Gang of Eight -- which includes the party leaders in the House and Senate and the four leaders of the two Intelligence committees.

 “There’s nothing scheduled on the balloon, but they’re scheduling Donald Trump,” Turner said, noting that Biden and Pence documents would be “included.”
“It's supposed to be this week, we’ll see whether or not the balloon happens first,” he said.
11:51 a.m. ET, February 5, 2023

Navy divers will be used to help recover surveillance balloon wreckage

From CNN's Jamie Crawford and Aaron Pellish

Multiple US Navy and Coast Guard vessels are in the area where the suspected Chinese spy balloon went down and are securing a perimeter, according to a senior US military official said.

The official told CNN that the Navy had anticipated having to recover debris in deeper water, but it landed at a depth of about 47 feet, which "will make it fairly easy."

The official said "capable Navy divers" will go down as needed into the water to assist in the operation.

There are also “unmanned vessels that can go down to get the structure and lift it back up on the recovery ship,” the official added. The official did not know how long it would take crews to recover any salvageable equipment from the downed aircraft but noted that recovery could take "a relatively short time."

"I don't anticipate months and weeks," the official said.

11:07 a.m. ET, February 5, 2023

New Hampshire GOP governor calls Biden's balloon strategy 'too little too late'

From CNN’s Kiely Westhoff

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire on Sunday slammed President Joe Biden’s response to the suspected Chinese spy balloon as “too little too late.”

“This is all about China testing the American resolve,” Sununu said on "This Week" on ABC. “They know that tensions are escalating, and they want to see what kind of leadership we have.”
“The president clearly failed on this one,” he added.

Biden, for his part, told reporters Saturday that he gave the order Wednesday to take down the balloon “as soon as possible” and that the military waited to act until it had passed over the Atlantic Ocean to avoid “doing damage to anyone on the ground.” 

CNN previously reported that the president also wanted the military to shoot down the balloon in such a way that it would maximize the ability to recover its payload, allowing the US intelligence community to sift through its components and gain insights into its capabilities, officials said.

Shooting it down over water also increased the chances of being able to recover the payload intact, the officials said.

Republicans such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have countered that Biden should have been more forthcoming with the American public when he first learned about the suspected spy balloon.