Over the last week, the Biden administration announced to the entire world, through inaction, that the United States is the weakest, most impotent it’s ever been, as a Chinese spy balloon was allowed to fly freely and unimpeded over a vast swath of the continental United States while Pentagon leaders hemmed and hawed and struggled to answer even basic questions from the White House Press Corps. Even when the Chinese government hilariously claimed it was just a weather balloon used for agricultural purposes, nobody in the administration hit back.

We learned Tuesday afternoon that on Saturday, shortly after the balloon was finally downed, China rejected a request from Pentagon officials to have a secure call between US the Secretary of Defense and China’s Minister of Defense — cementing the prediction that Beijing would interpret Biden’s inaction as extreme weakness. Biden had an opportunity to address the issue before the world in his State of the Union address Tuesday night and at least attempt to sound strong and intimidating, but he couldn’t even pull that off.

Instead, we saw complete gaslighting about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two countries on the world stage, and claiming that Beijing learned last week that if they “threaten our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country.”

Sure. We probably wouldn’t have even heard of the spy balloon if regular Americans hadn’t spotted it with their own eyes.

More than an hour into the speech, Biden finally mentioned China – but what he led with was some fever dream that he’d stopped the PRC’s increase in power and America’s decline.

Before I came to office, the story was about how the People’s Republic of China was increasing its power and America was falling in the world. Not anymore.

I’ve made clear with President Xi that we seek competition, not conflict.

Well, he’s definitely made it clear that we do not seek conflict.

Biden then crowed that he was “investing in American innovation” in certain industries that China’s government is intent on dominating, undoubtedly in reference to things like microchip manufacturing, which likely pleased audience member Paul Pelosi.

I will make no apologies that we are investing to make America strong. Investing in American innovation, in industries that will define the future, and that China’s government is intent on dominating. Investing in our alliances and working with our allies to protect our advanced technologies so they’re not used against us. Modernizing our military to safeguard stability and deter aggression.

Today, we’re in the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone else in the world.

I am committed to work with China where it can advance American interests and benefit the world. But make no mistake: as we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.

Yeah, they’re gonna send all of our calls straight to voicemail.

We literally had a Chinese spy balloon fly over the country and this borderline clinical, moron, is yapping about how we’re in the strongest position to oppose China in decades.

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) February 8, 2023

Biden continued to characterize our relationship with China as a competition. He doesn’t realize that while he’s got that poster of Xi Jinping on his wall to gaze upon while he struggles to complete a chin-up on the bar installed across his bedroom door, nobody in Beijing is thinking of him as anything other than a puppet whose strings they can yank at any moment.

And let’s be clear: winning the competition with China should unite all of us. We face serious challenges across the world. But in the past two years, democracies have become stronger, not weaker. Autocracies have grown weaker, not stronger.

If Joe Biden thinks that democracies have become stronger, not weaker, he needs to watch the footage of his wife making out with Kamala Harris’s husband.

Says it all.