ABC "This Week" - TRANSCRIPT 'This Week' Transcript 2-5-23: Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Marco Rubio, Gov. Chris Sununu & Adm. Mike Mullen

Interview

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There are a lot of unanswered questions this morning about what the Chinese were trying to do, and about a second Chinese balloon spotted yesterday over South America. And what this means for U.S.-China relations.

Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen is here to help us sort it out.

But first we are joined by the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Marco Rubio.

Senator Rubio, thank you for joining us.

We're -- we're hearing the reaction from China now to the -- the shooting down of this balloon. Their spokesperson has said that this was, of course, simply an accident, a weather balloon that veered off course. But then they said this. For the United States to insist on using armed force is clearly an excessive reaction that seriously violates international convention. China will resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprise involved and retains the right to respond further.

So, what do you make of that? It sounds like they are threatening, or at least suggesting, some sort of retaliation for -- for the taking down of this balloon.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): Well, I can assure you that if we fly a balloon over China, they're going to shoot it down, and probably a lot sooner than we did. But I think there's an important thing to understand is, look, there's intelligence value to what this balloon did. That's why they have them. That's why they've used them. And we'll learn more about that here in the days to come, especially as we're briefed on it.

But there is a symbolic issue at play here. This is not a coincidence that this thing traversed the United States over sensitive military sites leading up to Blinken's, what was scheduled to be his visit to China. This is deliberate. They did this on purpose. They understood that it was going to be spotted. They knew the U.S. government would have to reveal it. That people were going to see it over the sky. And the message they were trying to send is what they believe internally, and that is that the United States is a once great superpower that's hollowed out, that's in decline.

And the message they're trying to send the world is, look, these guys can't even do anything about a balloon flying over U.S. airspace. How can you possibly count on them if something were to happen in the Indo-Pacific region? You're going to count on -- how can you count on them. If they're not going to do anything about a balloon over U.S. air space, how are they going to come to the aid of Taiwan or -- or stand with the Philippians or Japan or India if -- when the Chinese move on their territories?

So, I think that that's really the -- the key part here is they -- they knew exactly what they were doing, and -- and there was a message behind it.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC "THIS WEEK" ANCHOR: But the balloon was shot out of the sky. What do you mean? I mean, the balloon was taken down.

RUBIO: Yes, and I think they understood that ultimately that would probably be what would -- could happen, and then they would make this other statement about, oh, the U.S. is overreacting. It's just a weather balloon. Look how silly they got. That's part of it as well.

But what they know the world is going to see is, you have a balloon that entered through the -- Alaska, traversed everywhere from Idaho, Montana, across the Midwest, over some of the most sensitive -- I mean look at the -- the flight path that this thing took. It's not coincidental. It went over ICBM fields, some of the most sensitive military sites we have, and then exited the southeast of the United -- seaboard of the United States and into the ocean.

So, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. When was it spotted? Why was it not brought down sooner over other areas? I'm open to listening to the arguments they make about why wasn't it dealt with sooner. But my point about -- you asked about China's comments. This is the -- this is what they wanted the world to see, that they could send a balloon at 60,000 feet over U.S. airspace, over military facilities, and that we would be unable to stop it. And then ultimately, when we shoot it down, if we did, they would argue, look how they overreact to a weather balloon, which obviously is not what it is.

KARL: So you are a member of the so-called gang of eight. You're one of the congressional officials that will get briefed first on this. What questions do you want to ask?

RUBIO: Well, I think the intelligence value of it is always first and foremost on our mind. What -- what do we believe they collected from it? What is the value of it? It is one of multiple platforms. Obviously, look, the -- countries spy on countries. China has satellites. China, unfortunately, has embedded in our country all kinds of Huawei software and hardware that could potentially be used for espionage. But what was the value of this platform? Because it's one we've seen them use now for a handful of years here. But -- but what's the value of it?

But I think Secondarily to it is really an understanding of, you know, what are we going to do about it in the future because I don't believe this is the last time we're going to see this sort of thing happen. Again, I don't think this is coincidental. I think they did this on purpose to send a message to the world that they can enter American airspace and do so without us being able to do or willing to do much about it.

KARL: The suggestion that we've heard from Pentagon officials is there may actually be more intelligence value that we will glean from this. This was shot down over water. They hope to recover the payload largely intact.

Is it possible that we may learn some significant and important things about the way the Chinese are operating by retrieving this -- this payload?

RUBIO: Potentially. It depends what we retrieve. Remember, this thing went into the ocean. So, it depends on what we retrieve. And, frankly, it also depends on what -- who -- the Chinese sort of suspected that this might happen. I mean, look, they flew this thing across the middle of the United States. So I imagine whoever designed this thing and put it up there realized, hey, at some point the Americans may get their hands on this. It's quite possible that it was designed in such a way where there wouldn't be much value to us in that regard.

But, look, we're going to find out more. Those are the kinds of things that, obviously, will not be discussed publicly because if they knew what we gleaned from it, they'd protect themselves from it in the future. So, those are obviously some of the questions that we'll want answered in the days to come .and it also depends what they're able to retrieve here, obviously. When you shoot something out of the sky and it goes into the ocean, you don't always get it back in a neat package.

KARL: Did Secretary Blinken make the right move to cancel that trip to Beijing?

RUBIO: Yes, I don't know how you could possibly make that trip happen at this point with this thing happening. But -- but I -- again, I think these two things were linked. And I think most troubling, and I'm not -- maybe it's not true, I hope it's not true, but there are reports in "Bloomberg" and other outsets that one of the reasons why the Biden administration did not disclose this balloon earlier to the American public, because it didn't want to endanger or imperil his ability to travel over there.

But -- but certainly I think once this happened, I think there's no way he could have possibly made that trip at this stage.

KARL: And -- and -- and he shot it down, when he shot it down, based on the advice of -- of the military. You don't think he should have ordered -- ordered it to be shot down earlier against the advice of -- of -- of the Joint Chiefs, do you?

RUBIO: Well, I think it first begins -- well, I understand it -- when did we first track it over airspace. Theoretically, if it entered through Alaska, NORAD, it's our system of spotting things and protecting both American and Canadian airspace. So, it was spotted a lot earlier.

So, I'd love to hear from military officials about why wasn't it addressed earlier, what were the options at that point.

Again, look, maybe in a closed session or maybe in the settings of -- with a benefit of hindsight, they'll have some real good arguments about why it couldn't be done.

I recognize that you shoot something out of the sky that's the size -- that's the size of three buses and it lands in the wrong place, it could hurt, harm or kill people and damage infrastructure.

But by the same token, I think that if that was the case, then I think it really would have been helpful for the president of the United States to get on national television and explain to the American people, this is what we're dealing with. This is what I'm going to do about it and this is why I haven't done it yet.

None of that happened, and I don't know why. And in fact, I don't now why they waited so long to tell people about this, and they knew the trajectory that it was on it seems from late last week, or early last week.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC "THIS WEEK" CO-ANCHOR: And we're also told, by the way, that this happened three times under the previous president. And, obviously, there were no public notifications there.

Senator Rubio, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

RUBIO: Thank you.

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