Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced all members of the Senate will be permitted to participate in a briefing by national security officials on the fourth acknowledged incursion by a Chinese surveillance balloon into American airspace, Politico reports. “Republican critics were breathless, political, and premature. President Biden and his team were calm, calculating and effective,” Schumer said.
The Biden Administration ordered the military to shoot down the balloon, which the Pentagon opted to do after it drifted over the ocean so it could crash with minimum risk to human safety. In the first combat kill in the fighter jet’s history, an F-22 Raptor brought down the balloon off the coast of the Carolinas in relatively shallow waters, allowing the US military the opportunity to salvage the wreckage.