The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Former Acting Defense Secretary Doesn’t Think China Would Have Flown Balloon Under Trump

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

U.S. officials revealed a week ago, on Feb. 2, that a Chinese surveillance balloon was flying over the country. Two days later, on Feb. 4, an American fighter jet shot down the spy balloon with a missile.  Chris Miller, acting defense secretary under President Donald Trump, weighs in on the Biden administration’s decision to shoot down China’s balloon and whether he would have handled the situation differently.  “That goes back to when was it identified and when did our sensors pick up that,” Miller says of the spy balloon on “The Daily Signal Podcast,” adding: “I was a bad map reader, and people that worked with me in the military will attest to that. But I did look at the track of the balloon, and when it came over the Aleutian Islands [off Alaska], there was a lot of blue space.”  “There was a lot of doggone ocean where something could have been done,” he says. “I’ve heard that whole [Biden administration] justification: ‘Well, we didn’t want to knock it down because it would’ve fallen on somebody. Could have injured somebody or killed somebody.’ I mean, that’s a valid request.”  Miller adds:  Let me give you this one, Samantha: You spent a trillion dollars, $850 billion, [on] defense and we did not have the capability to take control of that doggone balloon and bring it down on our own terms without having to send up a hundred-million-dollar fighter aircraft to shoot a $400,000 Sidewinder missile?On the podcast, Miller discusses some of Biden’s comments on China during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, his thoughts on how the Biden administration responded to the Chinese spy balloon, and his new book “Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield and the Pentagon About America’s Most Dangerous Enemies.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, February 9th. I'm Samantha Sherris, and joining today's show is former acting defense secretary Chris Miller. Chris is the author of the newly released book, Soldier Secretary, warnings from the battlefield and the Pentagon about America's most dangerous enemies. And he joins today's show to dive deeper into the Biden administration's handling of the Chinese spy balloon, his thoughts on President Biden's comments on China during the State of the Union address, and much more. We'll get to my conversation with Chris right after this. Conservative women, conservative feminist. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen,

and every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories that are of particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to politics and policy. Plus, we bring you an exclusive interview with a problematic lawmaker or conservative activists every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcasts. And we are also problematic on social media. So be sure to follow us on Instagram. Joining today's show is Chris Miller. He served as acting defense secretary under President Donald Trump and is the author of the newly released book, Soldier Secretary, Warnings from the Battlefield and the Pentagon about America's Most Dangerous Enemies.

Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Samantha. You know, I had to write a book to finally get on the Daily Signal podcast. So thanks for having me. I know you were up late last night doing State of the Union and you guys are probably just living on doggone caffeine and junk food right now. Thanks for taking the time to talk about my book. Yes, of course. Now, before we actually talk about your book,

I do want to talk about some comments that the president made on Tuesday night at the State of the Union Address. And I want to just dive right in here and get your thoughts on specifically what the president had to say about China and the U.S.'s relationship with a communist party. He said, before I came to office, the story was about how the people, People's Republic of China was increasing its power, and America was failing in the world. Not anymore. Chris, given your background and your experience and your knowledge, what are your thoughts on the president's comments?

Hey, Samantha, you want me to be really politically correct and just give you some, like, a milk-toast sound bite, or do you want me to tell you what I really think? Tell us what you really think. Come on. I mean, it was such, it was Orwell. It was like they just violated our territorial integrity and sovereignty and flew a doggone spy balloon, not even to mention. You know, how many years ago was it when they hacked into the Office of Personnel Management Security Database and like stole like, how many was it? 22 million files. We're like, are you for, I mean, are you for real?

And I just, that's kind of my frustration. That's the point of the book, too, you know. It's like, oh, come. Let's start seeing it as it is. And the politicians get going. And it's, come on. It's like, you got to be kidding me. Do you realize, I mean, I stayed up, you know,

it's waiting for the foreign policy segment because that's what we care, you know, we're into. What was it? Like two minutes? It wasn't a lot. There wasn't much meat in the bones on that one, was there? Yeah. And he also said that today we're the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone

else in the world. Do you agree with this? What are your thoughts on this comment? My thing is, you know, the Chinese Communist Party doesn't seem to be getting the message because they fly flotillas of planes and barricade or blockade Taiwan regularly. And we've got this, you know, incredible violation of our airspace. So, and then we've got the Chinese, you know, in Latin America and Africa, basically buying up everything they can to gain influence.

And as we sit back, kind of observing the problem. So, yeah, I think there's, I guess that's my problem right now is the lack of consistency with the policy. And I'm all about, you know, deception and all that. But when you're dealing with somebody like Chairman G and the Chinese Communist Party, I don't think there has to be kind of some red lines and just laid out. very clear lead to them what is important to us and what we can accept. And I don't think that's been done yet because I'm venting too much.

Sorry, you triggered me. It's like, holy cow, the president says we're going to defend Taiwan and then we'll have the secretary of state say, well, the policy hasn't changed. Secretary of defense comes up with something else. I was in China. I'd be pretty confused. I like the madman theory sometimes, but a clueless and lost man theory of, of, you know, strategy probably is not the one I think we should be using.

And this speech comes just days after a Chinese spy balloon floated across the United States. And as our audience members know, as you know, it was shot down on Saturday. How do you evaluate the Biden administration's handling of this balloon situation that we saw unfold over the last couple of days? I can't tell what's going on. It seems like everybody's doing the CYA routine because the story seems. the change every time John Kirby or some other figure goes out to, well, I guess Buttigieg did it on Sunday, whoever they send out to try to describe what's going on, General Van Herk, I just get more

confused. And, you know, it's kind of one of the themes in my book, by the way, it's like accountability. And right now, this, this is pretty important to me that we, you know, the military is really good about lessons and learning and trying to learn from their mistakes. And what I'm concerned with right now is everybody's just trying to cover their butts and we need to get to the bottom of this. Did like were our defenses not sufficient to identify the balloon? That's fine. That's all right. Somebody just tell us what's going on so we know how to what to do going forward.

Yeah, definitely. And I also wanted to get your thoughts on their call to wait to shoot it down, you know, a few days versus shooting it down when they first found out. Did you agree with that call? Would you have handled it differently if you were in their position? Like goes back to when was it identified and when did our sensors pick up that? I was a bad map reader and people that worked with me in the military will attest to that. But I did look at the track of the balloon and when it came over the Aleutian Islands,

there was a lot of blue space. There was a lot of doggone ocean where something could have been done. And I've heard that whole justification, well, we didn't want to knock it down because it would have fallen on somebody, could have injured somebody or killed somebody. I mean, that's a valid request. But let me give you this. Let me give you this one, Samantha. We spend a trillion dollars, $850 billion in defense. We did not have the capability to take control of that dolled on balloon and bring it down on our own terms without having to send up $100 million dollar sidewriter aircraft to shoot a $400,000 sidewinder missile.

I mean, that's kind of what we need to be talking about. It's like, holy cow, what do we spend it all this money for if we can't take down a simple balloon without having to doggone shoot a missile into it. And as I mentioned at the top of the interview, you served as acting defense secretary under former President Donald Trump. How do you think he and his administration would have handled the situation if they were in it? President Trump's instincts on national security were really, in my view, spot on. And I can't speak for the president. Has he said anything out he would have handled it? I think he probably would have been, he would have taken that thing down.

Well, actually, I got to tell you, I don't think the Chinese would have done something about something so provocative with President Trump because they didn't know. I mean, he's been pretty strong against them. And was using economic power. I guess I'll tell you, I haven't really thought about that. I don't think they would have tried that under President Trump. Yeah, there were obviously some rumors that there were Chinese spy balloons that were detected, but they didn't know about until after the Trump administration. But so far, those haven't been confirmed.

There's kind of a changing storyline there as well. And, you know, whether or not that actually happened or not, we'll have to see. But more broadly speaking, how do you evaluate the Biden administration's handling and President Biden's handling of the threat from the Chinese Communist Party? Like I said earlier, it's inconsistent. I don't really know what our policy is. I don't know what our strategy is. It seems like a little bit of following on with President Trump's strategy, which was to compete economically. But I just, I don't think I could tell you exactly what it is.

So it's really difficult to comment on how the administration is doing. You know, I think we have to go back to the original problem, which was our debacle, the debacle, which was our withdrawal from Afghanistan. I think that probably was viewed. I think if we open up the archives in 50 years, what the Chinese gives access in 50 years to their National Security Council meeting notes or their Politburo notes, we'll see that they saw that our failure there in Afghanistan, opportunity to probe the United States and figure out, I think they probably saw it as weakness. And we saw that because the incursions against Taiwan just went off the charts after that. So I really, I don't know the answer to your question, really interested in it now. Yeah, yeah.

And I know you brought up your book earlier. And I want to dive a little bit deeper into your book and what it's about. I know it was just released on Tuesday, February 7th. So our audience members, it's out there if you want to go buy it. It's titled, again, Soldier Secretary, Warnings from the Battlefield and the Pentagon about America's Most Dangerous Enemies. So without giving away any spoilers, can you tell us about your book? Yeah, I mean, kind of says it all right there. Here's what I was trying to do.

Instead of these horribly, like, boring books that public figures were. right. Usually they have a ghostwriter. They don't write them. I wrote this book. I had a partner that helped me. But what I really wanted to do, my concern is there's a separation between our armed forces and their citizenry that they are sworn to protect. And what I wanted to do is kind of tell some stories in an entertaining manner that were accessible to the American public and also accessible and maybe remind veterans or people in armed forces. Maybe they get a chuckle about, out of, but try to draw out some larger lessons about how we do national defense and how we, how these decisions are made. So the idea is, you know, try to kind of bridge the gap between

those that serve and those they serve. And that was my biggest problem with after 1-6, where January 6th and all the misinformation that went out about the military from various factions, I was like, man, the American citizenry really needs to know more about these great people in the military. And, and, um, that was the goal of the book. Hopefully it's a little bit entertaining. Yeah, no, I am excited to read it. It should be a really interesting read.

And specifically talking about these warnings, again, I don't want to give away any spoilers, but if you could maybe say or preview like one or two specific warnings that you hope that readers will take away from the book and maybe the most important one that you think is needed, to deter our dangerous enemies that you talk about. Well, I know it's going to be a heretic, particularly with heritage and everybody, but I think it's doggone unbridled military spending without a plan. More isn't better, and I really worry that, you know, we bankrupted the Soviet Union because they couldn't keep up with this technologically.

I feel like the Chinese are probably doing the same thing to us. They're giving us the impression that you need to invest in all these gold-plated weapon systems and all this stuff. And in reality, they probably aren't going to be that effective operationally. And I think they're probably doing a different strategy. And I think we need to get much more sophisticated and savvy about that. So that's one of the threats. But the real thing is accountability.

It's disappointing to me to see that we lost the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We definitely met our strategic objectives against terrorist groups, ISIS and al-Qaeda. But fundamentally, you know, strategic overreach is my. concern right now. And I think as the world is sorting itself out, it's probably better to come back home and think about how we want to go forward. And there's some recommendations in the book about different operational concepts and strategies that, you know, I just wanted to be a little bit provocative and maybe provide some fodder for additional discussion and decision-making. Yeah, definitely. Chris, just before we go, do you have any final thoughts?

No, thanks for what you guys are doing. Thanks for having me on, taking the time. I hope I didn't bore everybody to death. But yeah, man, I just really, really wanted to hopefully tell a story that is accessible to people and not in the typical, you know, CYA way that a lot of political figures do. And just I really highlight the things I learned and the mistakes I made as opposed to, you know, trying to wear his color glasses on it. Well, Chris Miller, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it and your insight.

Again, he is the author of Soldier Secretary, Warnings from the Battlefield and the Pentagon about America's Most Dangerous enemies. Chris, thanks so much. Thanks, Samantha. Great talking again. And that'll do it for today's episode of The Daily Signal interview edition. If you haven't gotten a chance, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcast. You can hear even more interviews like my interview today with Chris Miller. And you can also listen to the top news, which we have every afternoon.

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