‘Politics Traditionally Stops At Water’s Edge’: CNN Anchor Asks Republicans in Munich If They’re ‘United’ With Biden On China

Republicans Rep. Michael McCaul and Rep. Mike Turner are among a large number of American politicians attending the Munich Security Conference this weekend and spoke with CNN anchor Pamela Brown, who asked if they “united” with President Joe Biden on “countering China.”

McCaul is chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, and Turner is chair of the Intelligence committee. After some discussion about the Chinese spy balloon, Brown noted that the two have been critical of the Biden administration’s handling of China.

“So as we just heard, you both have been critical of President Biden’s response to China here at home,” said Brown. “But politics traditionally stops at the water’s edge. Are you and the Biden administration on the same page in presenting a united message to the world when it comes to countering China, where you are right now in Munich?”

McCaul answered that there’s a great “opportunity for bipartisanship” on issues related to China that have been a big part of the international conference. But he did not specifically say that Republicans in attendance are “on the same page” with Biden.

Yeah, I think we have a unique opportunity to be bipartisan on this issue of, you know, national security against one of the greatest threats to this country and the world, for that matter. And I think, you know, the fact that a select committee was voted on by a large majority of Democrats. So when we talk about particularly export controls, this balloon, by the way, had a lot of American parts in it. We know that the hypersonic missile that went around the world with precision was built on the backbone of American technology.

So there’s a lot of discussion here at this summit about how can we — you know, they steal a lot of this from us, but we don’t have to sell them the very technology they can put in their advanced weapons systems to then turn against either Taiwan and the Pacific or eventually possibly the United States of America. I think there’s great bipartisanship on this issue, by the way, as well as Ukraine. I think our delegation has been very unified in our support for Ukraine and putting everything we can from a weapons perspective into Ukraine so they can defeat the Russians.

Watch the clip above, via CNN.