Turner: Takedown timing of suspected spy balloon ‘like tackling the quarterback after the game is over’

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) blasted the Biden administration for allowing a suspected Chinese spy balloon to fly across the middle of the U.S. before shooting it down over the Atlantic Ocean, arguing the move was “like tackling the quarterback after the game is over.”

Turner, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the Biden administration allowed the balloon to fly over sensitive military and intelligence sites in the U.S., arguing President Biden should have dealt with the balloon sooner.

“The satellite had completed its mission,” Turner said. “It should never have been allowed to enter the United States, and it never should have been allowed to complete its mission.”

The balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday so as to not endanger people and infrastructure on the ground with falling debris.

Despite Chinese claims that the balloon was used for civilian research purposes, U.S. defense officials have said it was used for espionage. Turner on Sunday argued that the path of the balloon’s flight was over a number of sensitive U.S. sites.

“If you asked somebody to draw an X at every place where our sensitive missile defense sites, our nuclear weapons infrastructure, our nuclear weapons sites are, you would put them all along this path,” Turner said. “Clearly, this was an attempt by China to gather information to defeat our command and control of our sensitive missile offensive nuclear weapons sites.”

With what he said was a serious threat to national security, Turner also hit the Biden administration for not yet scheduling a briefing for congressional leaders on the balloon.

“That certainly is an urgency that this administration does not recognize,” Turner said.