Washington D.C. – Congresswoman Elise Stefanik joined Fox and Friends to discuss the crises Joe Biden must answer for in his State of the Union Address tonight. She also announced her guest to the speech, Montgomery County Sheriff Jeffrey T. Smith of Fort Plain, New York. In the interview, Stefanik highlighted Joe Biden’s weakness on the world stage regarding the Chinese Communist Party’s spy balloon and previewed the first hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government this week.
Watch her full interview here.
Highlights of her interview are below:
On Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address:
“I don’t think Joe Biden is going to be reaching across the aisle. I think he is going to try to lecture House Republicans and, frankly, double down on his failed Far Left policies that we’ve seen for the last two years, whether it’s the trillions of dollars of reckless spending that have caused this debt crisis or whether it’s the border crisis.”
“House Republicans are going to highlight our Commitment to America in the guests we bring, so you will see border patrol families, you will see law enforcement. I’m inviting a local county sheriff from Montgomery County, from my district, to highlight the crime crisis and important laws that House Republicans wanted to pass in order to support our law enforcement and address the crime crisis on our streets.”
On the Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance balloon:
“I sit on the House Intelligence Committee and the House Armed Services Committee—a senior Member on both of those committees.”
“[President Biden] abysmally failed in terms of handling this as the commander in chief. We’re talking about our number one adversary in the 21st century going into our sovereign airspace. And what is very concerning is this Administration and Joe Biden had no intention of telling the American people until an everyday American pointed it out.”
“That is sending a signal of weakness to Communist China. We need to assert strength, we need to assert peace through strength, which is why House Republicans are going to stand up for peace through strength when it comes to our defense policies. This is part of the reason that we started the Select China Committee, which is bipartisan.”
“We believe this needs to be an American priority, not a partisan one. It should unify, and does unify, everyday Americans who know that a rising China is an adversary to the United States of America.”
“There are a lot more questions that need to be answered, and that’s why it’s important to have briefings for Members of Congress. Speaker McCarthy has demanded a briefing not just for Congressional leadership but for all Members.”
“As we think about a rising China in terms of being a top adversary for the United States in the 21st century, we need to make sure we have an understanding of, what information were they collecting? What intel was this Chinese spy balloon collecting? And why did we even allow it to enter our sovereign airspace?”
“China is watching, our adversaries are watching. They have seen weakness from day one from Joe Biden as commander in chief.”
“I think this actually goes back to the catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal. Both Russia and China were watching that weakness and they are asserting, trying to assert their strength to take advantage of that weakness. We need to return to the policies we saw under President Trump and Republican leadership when we had a strong commander in chief.”
On the upcoming first hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government:
“I think this will be some of the most important work of the House Republican Majority. This is about transparency and shining a spotlight. So this first open hearing is to set the tables. If you talk to everyday Americans, they are deeply concerned that federal agencies are targeting hardworking Americans and that there’s two sets of rules. If you happen to have the last name Cliinton or Biden, crimes are brushed under the rug. We have seen how the FBI and the Department of Justice have not addressed Hunter Biden’s clear crimes and yet, at the same time, they are targeting conservatives and Republicans because of your political beliefs. We see that in their targeting of parents. We see that in their targeting of whistleblowers in their own agencies who raise concerns.”
“We are going to leave no stone unturned. I believe this is going to lead to bombshell reports—the work of this subcommittee—and ultimately legislative reforms.”
