Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is now considering a run for president, was asked on Fox on Wednesday about the Biden administration’s criticism of rail deregulation efforts by the Trump administration.
Fox host Martha MacCallum told Pence that, in the wake of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in early February, “They’re blaming the Trump administration. They say it’s the regulations that you peeled back that led to this lack of safety.”
Pence replied: “Yeah, same crowd that said that Chinese balloons floated over our administration, right – until they admitted that they didn’t.”
Facts First: Pence’s claim is false. Neither the Biden administration nor the Pentagon has “admitted” that Chinese spy balloons didn’t float over the United States during the Trump-Pence administration. In fact, the Biden administration and the Pentagon have said this month that Chinese spy balloons did float over the US during the Trump-Pence era. The Pentagon has briefed Congress about these suspected Trump-era incidents; former Trump administration national security officials who were briefed by the intelligence community last week have not disputed the existence of these incidents after the briefings; and CNN has viewed excerpts from a 2022 military intelligence report that said a Chinese spy balloon in 2019 “drifted past Hawaii and across Florida before continuing its journey.”
Former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien told CNN last week that his briefing made clear that “nothing like” this year’s Chinese balloon incident, “with the balloon loitering over US nuclear sites,” took place under Trump. But O’Brien did not say the Trump-era incidents didn’t happen at all. Rather, he said that “we were not briefed during the Trump administration on this program, and most of this was discovered after we left office. Most of…
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