China is "clearly" getting ready to interfere in the 2024 elections, as it's "good for" them when the United States has a weak leader like President Joe Biden, former of National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe said Sunday while discussing a declassified national security report released last week detailing election interference incidents that took place during the 2022 midterms.
"The intelligence community has to grudgingly walk back the erroneous assessment that in 2020 China was sitting on the sidelines," Ratcliffe, who served under former President Donald Trump, said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."
"I was very vocal that we had collected specific intelligence of a specific plan or campaign by China to interfere in 2020 for the specific purpose of helping Joe Biden become president ... what this report acknowledges is that that's exactly what happened," he added.
And now, said Ratcliffe, security officials are "acknowledging that China's going to intensify those efforts in 2024, that our greatest geopolitical foe has and will continue to want Joe Biden to be the president for the next four years because, I mean, stating the obvious, he's been very good to China."
China wanted Biden, Ratcliffe said, because Trump had enforced trade and tariffs sanctions, and China "correctly believed Joe Biden would be more pro-China and, frankly, weaker as a commander in chief and those things have played out."
Chinese President Xi Jinping has also informed Biden that China is going to reunify Taiwan, said Ratcliffe, but there was no response from Biden.
"The appropriate response, of course, would have been and should have been, Look, we've respected the 'One China' policy, but ... we also respect Taiwan's right to self-governance and self-determination; and if you interfere, all bets are off," said Ratcliffe.
However Biden and his administration "won't confront China on COVID, wouldn't confront China on the spy balloon," said Ratcliffe. "All of these are the reasons why Joe Biden is in many ways the dream candidate for China to continue for the next four years."
The news that the Biden administration tried to hide news about the Chinese spy balloon earlier this year underscores even more issues, said Ratcliffe.
"Part of it is just a lack of competence," he said. "Joe Biden's national security team has been incompetent. That's why we've lost ground, lost influence, lost strategic deterrence. It's why we're being pushed around ... that's why China wants it to continue. It's good for them when America has a weak commander in chief."