Tapper asks Rubio about reported see balloons right thru Trump admin.

Joining us now is the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Senator, thanks so much for joining us. So you have said that President Biden should have shot the balloon down.

Earlier, the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said, quote, After careful analysis, U.S. military commanders had determined to downing the balloon while Overland posed an undue risk to people across a wide area due to the size.

And altitude of the balloon and its surveillance payload. And as you heard Secretary about a judge just a few minutes ago said that the debris field after the balloon was shot down was about seven miles long. Should President Biden have ordered that it be.

Shot down anyway, regardless of that risk? No, not regardless of the risk. First of all, that they can track these things. I would hope you can track a slow moving balloon that clearly is headed here. As you can see from its trajectory.

I think that's one of the things we've learned this week is how soon, how late into January? Did they already know that there's this high altitude balloon and what its trajectory was and where it was headed? And why didn't they take action.

At that time? That's number one. I think the other thing that we need to know about it and understand is why did it take so long for them to disclose this to the American public? I don't think the trajectory of where this balloon was going was a mystery.

I think pretty early on, they probably because of the prevailing winds, because of the direction that it was headed. I think it was pretty clear that this thing was going to enter the northwest in Montana. In Idaho,.

Move its way down the Middle West and exit the the Eastern Seaboard, just off the Carolinas. I mean, that's an unprecedented flight path. And why did it wait till Wednesday to notify air Thursday to talk about it.

To the American people, knowing people were going to be seeing this thing? As vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, do you know? Has the U.S. recovered any parts of the Chinese spy balloon has them? And did the monitoring of the balloon.

During its journey as far as, you know, yield any worthwhile information for the U.S. Well, we won't know that until we get into a secure setting this week in Washington. And probably most of that is something we won't be able to disclose.

In any great detail. Other than to say this. And that is that, you know, they're going to try to recover this. Apparently, it's in shallow waters. We'll see what they recover from it. But I don't think the technology or the existence of these things.

Is a great mystery. I think what's embedded here is a clear message. It's not a coincidence that this happens leading up to the State of the Union address, leading up to Blinken's visit to China. The Chinese knew that this was going to be spotted.

They knew that we were going to have to react to it. They flew it over. Military installations and sensitive sites are crossed right across the middle. I mean, look at the flight path of this thing. It's a diagonal shot right.

Through the middle of the continental United States. And the message embedded in this to the world is we can fly a balloon over airspace of the United States of America, and it won't be able to do anything about it to stop us. They calculated this carefully.

With a message embedded in it. And I think that's the part we can't forget here. It's not just the balloon. It's the message they're trying to send the world that we can do whatever we want in America, can't stop us.

What information do you think the spy balloon might have gleaned as it as it traveled? I know it was over the fears that it was over some U.S. military installations. I'm also wondering if infrastructure was probably part of the surveillance task it had.

Well, again, it would be speculation other than to tell you that those things usually at that altitude and what they're doing is probably trying to collect on signals on electronic information that's transiting that they can pick up on their various.

Other means, that they can do that as well. And that's why I go back to the whole point of the message. There are probably other ways that China could acquire whatever they acquired using this balloon.

I may be wrong there may be some unique attributes to it that I'm that I'm not aware of yet, but we'll learn more about this week. But I think more than anything else, beyond just the ability to collect information, it is the ability to send a clear message.

And that is that we have the ability to do this. And America can't do anything about it if they're not going to be able to stop a balloon from flying over U.S. airspace. How is America going to come to your aid if we invade Taiwan.

Or take land from India or take islands from the Philippines and Japan? And I think the fact that they would do that leading up to State of the Union, leading up to what was then Blinken's scheduled visit, none of that is a coincidence.

So we need to understand clearly there was messaging behind this. But you so you think that first of all, I guess there are two parts to a question I have following up on that. One is the Pentagon says that they know of the Chinese.

Doing this at least four other times. Previously, once at the beginning of the Biden administration, three times during the Trump administration, it seems to be you're saying, oh, you're saying, no, that's not true. But in any case, is that is the no. What's the defense?.

Okay. Well, the difference is this. Are we aware? Have we seen the Chinese fly these balloons in the past? Yes. I think there's even Twitter pictures of it flying at one point.

Off the coast of the US down south somewhere that the existence of the balloons is not a mystery to people. And in that field. What we've never seen, what is unprecedented and whoever the source was at the Department of Defense,.

Would have to acknowledge just what is unprecedented is a balloon flight that entered over Idaho and flew over Montana over all these sensitive military installations, Air Force bases, ICBM fields right across the middle of the country. That has never happened before.

That is unprecedented, that it flew briefly over some part of the U.S.A. U.S. That's one thing but what we saw this week, it's unprecedented. And that's why everyone's reacting the way they're reacting. We've never seen this.

So this is no comparison to anything that may have happened up to this point. Your colleague and friend, Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, accused President Biden of, quote, dereliction of duty.

By allowing the Chinese spy balloon to fly across the U.S.. That's a pretty strong accusation. Do you agree with that? Well, I think the dereliction of duty begins with this. Why not on Tuesday or Wednesday? You know, people are going to see this at some point.

You're going to have to disclose it. And they probably didn't want to because they didn't want to have their hand forced on canceling this Blinken visit. And so they didn't so they didn't want to have to talk about it. But why didn't the president.

Go on television? He has the ability to convene the country and cameras and basically explain what we're dealing with here and why he's made the decisions he's making and what they intend to do. I don't understand. Once they get went public with it,.

Knowing the amount of interest this was going to generate. Presidents have the ability to go before camera, but go before the nation and basically explain these things early on. And his failure to do so.

I don't understand that. I don't understand why he wouldn't do that. And that is the beginning, a dereliction of duty. And the second is we have to act swiftly on these things. I think that's part of the one of the things.

The Chinese are trying to message and that is the US had to see this coming and decided they couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it early on and now had to wait until this thing went across the middle of the country. And and what are we going to do.

The next time this happens? Are we going to allow it to fly through here again and shoot it down once it gets to the East Coast? I mean, these are questions the White House needs to answer. And I don't think these are partizan claims I'm making.

I think there would be a broad agreement that we need to know. Moving forward what our policy is going to be with regards to this. So, as you noted, Secretary Blinken, did cancel his trip to China after it was disclosed that this balloon.

Was was flying over the U.S.. What additional consequences should there be for the Chinese government now Well, I think the first consequence has to be we have to decide what are we going to do the next time.

One of these things had to this way? Because I don't think it'll be the last time. I think you'll see it again. Beyond consequences. I'm not sure there should be a direct individual consequence. I think the broader relationship between the US and China.

To anyone who has any doubts about it. Now, the bottom line is here, and that is we are now China has been for some time and will be the primary strategic adversary of the United States and we should be focused on it because what they're trying to do is create a world.

In which they are the most powerful nation and the United States is a great power and decline that that is that is what they believe to be the case That is what they are working on. And we have to determine whether we're going to allow the world.

To head in that direction or not. And then there's all sorts of things we need to do from how we're postured militarily in the Indo-Pacific all the way to what kind of companies do we allow to operate in the United States and spy on us?.

Because we've invited them in, because they're in our infrastructure and our telecommunications infrastructure, because they're buying land because they're buying farmland, because they're because they're wiping out key industrial capabilities of this country.

There's all kinds of things that need to be discussed when it comes to China, because this is the issue of the 21st century. The Chinese government says now that the US has shot down that balloon, they reserve the right to use.

Whatever means they want to deal with any any similar situation. There's even talk in the Global Times, which is basically a Chinese mouthpiece, that that shooting down what they say is a civilian balloon that's a dangerous precedent and they might shoot down U.S.

Civilian apparatuses. What do you make of that? Are you are you fearful at all of this escalating? Listen, if we were to fly anything over China, they're going to shoot it down. They're going to shoot it down and they're going to hold up.

And they're going to take pictures of it and they're going to go bonkers about it. So I don't know what statement they're making. You can't you can't fly anything over China now anyways. I mean, if we were to do that, if we were to fly a balloon over China,.

The Goodyear blimp flew over China, they'd shoot it down. So it's it's a it's what they do over there. It's it's silly talk. Bottom line is, I think that's that's that's what we should expect anyway.

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