Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, joined "Sunday Morning Futures" to discuss the bipartisan delegation's trip to Taiwan and the aggression from the Chinese. The Republican Congressman gave his reaction to being surrounded by the Chinese military and saw their sanctions on him as a "badge of honor."
CHINA EXPANDS WARTIME MILITARY DRAFT TO INCLUDE VETERANS AND COLLEGE STUDENTS
REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL: … The Taiwan Relations Act, 1979, allows us to visit President Tsai [Ing-wen] or any heads of state of Taiwan. She visits the United States and somehow they're all bent out of shape about this. You know, they threatened us by emails prior to entering the island. So what it means basically is I cannot travel to China. I've been banned from any travel, nor can I conduct any business activity in China or work with any individuals from the PRC related to that. You know, but quite frankly Maria [Bartiromo], I view it as a badge of honor. You know, Communist China is getting so aggressive right now, and that was demonstrated by what they did around the island, and just the couple of days we were there, we had ten battleships surrounding the island, an aircraft carrier and 70 Chinese fighter jets in the air threatening us, and President Tsai the entire time we were in Taiwan.
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… They briefed me on it in a classified space, said you're surrounded. You know, I saw it more as intimidation rather than a direct threat to me, my personal safety. But it's them showing their bravado to their people. They feel compelled to have to do this any time, you know, a high-ranking official meets with President Tsai, like Kevin McCarthy did and myself, and we're not going to let that deter us or sway us in any way. We have every right to meet with President Tsai and show our support to stand with Taiwan against this very in the face of aggression. As you mentioned, weakness invites aggression at the beginning of the show, and this is all I've seen from this administration is projecting weakness. And when you do that, you invite aggression and war, and we saw this after Afghanistan fell. We saw it when [Vladimir] Putin invaded Ukraine, and now we're seeing it with Chairman Xi threatening Taiwan in the Pacific Islands.
