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Death of GOP talking point: Chinese spy balloons flew over U.S. three times unimpeded under Trump

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When the Chinese spy balloon was shot down by the U.S. military it seemingly deep-sixed a Republican attack narrative used by some members of Congress, conservatives on social media andonservative political entertainment media talk show hosts. It turns out that Joe Biden wasn’t not acting earlier in the week: he gave the Pentagon the order to shoot it down when it would be safe to do so and not pose a threat to people below on Wednesday.

Now comes the death of a talking point that has contined to rage: yes, indeed, Chinese balloons flew over the United States under Donald Trump. But Trump took no action and it was never disclosed. Forbes sums it up:

Talking heads on cable TV are up in arms about the Chinese spy balloon that was floating across the continental U.S., before it was shot down Saturday afternoon. Conservative commentators have insisted President Joe Biden should’ve ordered the balloon be shot down earlier and that a foreign balloon flying over U.S. territory never would’ve happened under President Donald Trump. But it did happen under Trump, according to several new reports.

The Chinese government claims the balloon, which was first spotted by civilians on Wednesday over Billings, Montana, was actually just a weather balloon that was blown off course. But the Pentagon says it’s definitely a surveillance balloon and China had the ability to maneuver the aircraft.

“I can nearly guarantee you that that balloon would not still be flying if we were still there,” Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State under Trump, told Sean Hannity on Friday.

But is Pompeo telling the truth? The Pentagon was quick to point out on Thursday that this kind of thing has happened before, though it didn’t get into specifics.

“Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years,” Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said in a statement published online.

But several reports have been published in the past two days that give us a better sense of when spy balloons operated by New Cold War adversaries have sailed into U.S. airspace. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Chinese balloons flew over the U.S. while President Trump occupied the White House.

“The balloon spotted this week over Montana was not the first time the U.S. has detected Chinese balloons over their territory—with previous incursions occurring during the Trump Administration,” Bloomberg reported.

But an unnamed source from the Trump administration insisted to Bloomberg in that same article that it wasn’t a big deal.

“One top national security official from the administration of former President Donald Trump said none of the Chinese spy balloons were near sensitive sites or had payloads as large as this one appears to carry,” Bloomberg continued.

And if you can’t trust an unnamed official who worked for Trump, who can you trust, right?

Go to the link to read the article in its entirety.

So narratives proved to be false about a)Biden not taking any action on the Chinese spy balloon, since he ordered the Pentagon to take it down on Wednesday and b)that this would never happen under Donald Trump. Basically, the default is immediately multi-prong attack.

What do Republicans say when they’re proven proven wrong?

This:

And this:


(Time to pivot to the next outrage.)