Members of Congress from Texas are responding to the balloon from China shot down this weekend after traveling over eleven states. The balloon had entered American airspace over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, crossed over southern Canada and back into the United States before being shot down Saturday by a military jet over the Atlantic Ocean.
"I want to start by doing something 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, absolutely what the president should have done," Senator Ted Cruz said Sunday on Face the Nation. "Unfortunately, he didn't do that until a week after it entered U.S. airspace."
Cruz said that time allowed the balloon the potential to conduct "spying operations over the United States, over sensitive military installations." He said that could allow the Chinese government to take pictures and intercept communications.
"We know that when the Biden Administration knew about the balloon, they said nothing, they did nothing, they didn't shoot it down," he said. "At the end of the day, I think the only reason they shot it down is because it made it into the news, and they felt forced to as a matter of politics rather than national security."
Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, whose district covers parts of Central Texas from Austin to just west of Houston, chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“The admin should have taken care of this before it became a national security threat. I hope we will be able to recover the wreckage to help determine what intelligence the CCP collected while its spy balloon was over our country for days," he wrote on Twitter. “I will be demanding answers and will hold the admin accountable for this embarrassing display of weakness.”
Members of the committee said they are now looking at their next steps, but they expect an "in-depth briefing."
Last week, Cruz and Senator John Cornyn introduced a resolution calling for the release of Houston resident Mark Swidan. Swidan has been detained in China since 2012 on drug charges.
A review by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found Swidan did not have any drugs in his hotel room, and his passport records show he was not in China at the time of the offense.
"The source states that the evidence against Mr. Swidan, as contained in the indictment, is weak and circumstantial and based almost entirely on hearsay. No drugs were found on Mr. Swidan, in his room or in his body," the U.N. review reads.
"He's wrongfully imprisoned. He's been there ten years," Cruz said. "They've sentenced him to death on charges for which they have little to no evidence."
In July 2020, the U.S. ordered China to close its consulate in Houston. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Chinese government was stealing American and European intellectual property.
"What they had discovered about the espionage activities being carried out in the State of Texas by the Chinese government was horrifying," Cruz said.
On Face the Nation, Cruz said the Chinese government is using TikTok for espionage and to spread messages of self-harm and body issues.
"The degree to which they have infiltrated our children is really disturbing," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says he expects the Senate to receive a briefing this week about the balloon and its surveillance capabilities. He says the Biden Administration is considering measures to hold China responsible, saying the president and his team were "calm, calculating, and effective."
"We sent clear message to China that this is unacceptable, protected civilians, and gained more intel while protecting our own sensitive information," he tweeted.
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