Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) knocked his Democratic colleagues over their reaction to the Chinese spy balloon that floated across the continental United States earlier this year.
Daines made the comments in an upcoming appearance on The Elephant in the Room, the Senate Republican Conference's podcast, set to be released on Friday. The Montana senator, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, argued in a preview clip shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner that Senate Democrats failed to investigate the balloon saga despite numerous members vowing to get answers.
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Noting that the balloon, which the Chinese denied was a surveillance craft, traversed across Montana, Daines said that its trajectory was "deliberate, [it] went right over our missile fields collecting intelligence."
"Here's what we found out," the senator began. "At the end of June, the Wall Street Journal broke a story that said there was U.S. technology on those spy balloons; what's going on? And by the way, why is it the Wall Street Journal that's breaking that story? Why isn't the Biden administration?"
He then took aim at his Senate Democratic colleagues, making specific mention of Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), whom Daines is actively trying to oust next year as head of the Senate GOP campaign arm.
"We had Senate Democrats, I mean, Jon Tester, my colleague here in Montana, said, 'We're going to have these hearings and expose it, get to the bottom of this.' Well, they didn't get to the bottom of anything. They wanted this to go away. They wanted to kind of fake the fact they were outraged because they had to cover up for this Biden administration."
United States defense officials have insisted that the balloon did not obtain U.S. intelligence during its flight across the country in February. The military shot the balloon down once it reached the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of the Carolinas.
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Those assurances have failed to satisfy senators on both sides of the aisle, including Daines and Tester. The Montana senators, who have long had a frosty relationship, sent separate letters to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo this month voicing their concerns about the balloon.
Asked about his work for the NRSC to block his Montana colleague from a fourth term next year, Daines noted that the GOP has "some opportunities. There’s eight states that will likely decide whether or not the Republicans have majority control or not in ‘24 — and one of those states happens to be Montana.”