Former Trump administration officials have expressed frustration and
confusion in recent days over revelations that Chinese surveillance
balloons hovered over US airspace during their time in office.
As more information has emerged about the extent of China’s use of
balloons to surveil the US and other countries, it's fuelled questions
about why
the Trump administration was apparently unaware
of previous incursions.A senior Pentagon official said that Chinese government surveillance
balloons hovered over the continental US
“at least three times”
during the Trump administration.Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to President Biden, said the
Biden administration had improved the government’s capacity to “be
able to detect things that the Trump administration was unable to detect.”
The balloons from the Trump administration period also were not over
US airspace for a very long time, officials said in recent days, shortening
the window to identify them and take action.
—Brett Samuels, The Hill, 11 February 2023.That Trump himself was not aware of these incursions himself, or failed
to order an investigation, or was out of touch with the National Security
Council shows that the man was simply not up to the job as POTUS.
Thankfully, we'll never see him in the White House again.