Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tried to claim that since Biden didn’t give a speech about the Chinese spy balloon, he was guilty of dereliction of duty.
Video:
Transcript via CNN’s State Of The Union:
TAPPER: 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 it?
RUBIO: 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 in 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 went public with it, knowing the amount of interest this was going to generate, presidents have the ability to go before camera, go before the nation and basically explain these things early on.
And his failure to do so is — I don’t understand that. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t do that. And that is the beginning of 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 U.S. 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 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?
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Trump didn’t do anything why spy balloons appeared over the United States, so by Rubio’s own standard, Trump was guilty of multiple acts of dereliction of duty.
Sen. Rubio could not fault Biden’s actions, where he carried out his duty to protect the American people by shooting down the balloon, the Florida senator came up with his own definition, which involves Biden going on TV and giving a speech.
Rubio also doesn’t seem to understand how balloons work. Sen. Rubion also claimed that Biden should have anticipated the path of the balloon and ordered it shot down.
Republicans who are accusing Biden of dereliction of duty are embarrassing themselves. Biden did nothing wrong, so Republicans are trying to make something up.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
