Gingrich Argues Biden Is Only ‘Suggester-in-Chief’: ‘The American Military Just Ignored Him’ Regarding the Balloon

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) added his voice again Monday to the furor on the right regarding the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. last week. In a conversation with Fox News anchor John Roberts, Gingrich argued that – according to the White House – the U.S. military ignored President Joe Biden’s order to shoot down the balloon for several days.

After a discussion about Biden’s upcoming State of the Union address, Roberts played a clip from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on a Sunday talk show.

“What began as a spy balloon has become a trial balloon, testing President Biden’s strength and resolve,” Cotton declared.

“So, again, his strength and resolve is tested just as we saw, you mentioned it, during the Afghanistan pullout, the buildup to the invasion of Ukraine. Now, we’ve allowed China to float a spy balloon across the country. Maybe Dan Davis is right that it didn’t have tremendous value to the Chinese, but it sure had propaganda value,” Roberts then said.

“Well, not just that. I mean I mean, first of all, these balloons are extraordinarily dangerous because you could put an electric magnetic pulse weapon on them, float them across, explode them where you want to,” Gingrich replied, parroting a common right-wing talking point from last week.

“I mean, we have no idea what the Chinese are doing. And it was a huge risk to allow it. But there’s an internal question here. When the military learned about it, apparently there’s a three or four-day period where they don’t tell the president. When the president learns about it, he says, shoot it down,” Gingrich continued, adding:

And the American military says, you know, you’re not really the commander in chief. You’re kind of a suggester-in-chief and we’re not going to do it. And so if you believe the White House, the president on Wednesday ordered it to be shot down and the American military just ignored it. That’s pretty extraordinary if true.

Notably, according to Politico’s timeline of events surrounding the balloon, Biden asked the Pentagon for “military options to shoot it down” on Jan. 31st. Politico adds that U.S. Northern Command Chief Gen. Glen VanHerck and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley “recommend against targeting the balloon over land due to the risk to civilians from the falling debris.” The balloon was eventually shot down, on Biden’s orders, on Feb 4th over the Atlantic Ocean.

“Furthermore, the idea that they couldn’t find a way to bring it down safely over the United States, there was a very funny thing in Babylon Bee, where they said first, first the balloon accomplished its mission, then I had it shot down,” Gingrich continued, referencing the right-leaning satirical website.

“That sort of captured where we are. Why would you let a Chinese balloon go all the way across the country, including over many of our most important military bases? And only then, after it’s all done, bring it down and then bring it down in such a way that now they’re having to go out and try to find it in the ocean,” he continued, adding:

I mean, we had plenty of capacity to scoop that balloon out of the air. We used to do it all the time with satellite photographs back before you had an electronic transmission. We’d have planes who would go off and actually capture the capsule that had the satellite, the spy material. The fact that we couldn’t in four or five days organize an ability to capture the balloon in the air, bring it to the ground safely, and then know exactly what the material is.

The balloon, operating at some 65,000 feet was over 200 feet tall and the size of three or four busses.

“This is just one more example of a bloated Pentagon bureaucracy that’s more worried about being dealing with social issues than it is about defending the United States. From Afghanistan on, we have seen failure after failure, and the Pentagon needs a deep, thorough shakeup,” Gingrich concluded.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News

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