Majority disapprove of Biden response to Chinese spy balloon: poll

Nearly two-thirds of voters disapprove of how President Joe Biden handled a recent aerial incursion of a suspected Chinese spy balloon, a survey has revealed.

In early February, the Chinese balloon entered U.S. airspace and traversed much of the country before the U.S. military shot it down off the coast of South Carolina.

President Joe Biden has contended that he sought to bring down the balloon at the outset but that defense officials had overruled him fearing collateral damage from the balloon descending to the ground. The decision to allow the balloon to traverse the U.S. prompted intense scrutiny from Biden's Republican detractors who accused him of jeopardizing American national security.

Biden has defended his handling of the bizarre incursion, but public opinion appears to be against him. In a Trafalgar Group/Convention of States Action survey, 63.4 percent of respondents disapproved of his response to the episode. Of those, 34.5 percent said he should have addressed the matter sooner while 28.9 percent felt he mishandled the matter overall.

A clear majority of 59.2 percent of voters said the affair made America look weak, while 58.8 percent asserted that Biden should have shot down the balloon before it entered U.S. air space.

Convention of States President Mark Meckler excoriated the Biden administration's handling of the affair, saying "[t]he haughty assurance from the DC Establishment that 'the adults are back in charge' after Biden became president is once again coming back to haunt us."

"As we saw with the historic disaster in Afghanistan, President Biden and his team are consistently unprepared for the crises our country is facing, both internationally and domestically," he continued. "This is what happens when unserious people are put in charge and come up against serious and dangerous problems."

"America would be better off if President Biden and his administration spent less time telling us people's pronouns and pushing far-left initiatives, and more time on the important business of actually running our nation," he lamented. "China is the greatest threat to America since the Soviet Union, and they are laughing at us. The American people are demanding serious leadership now."

Biden is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.