NOTE: the following article is satire, not a statement of fact. Treat it as such.
A Chinese balloon is currently floating over the center of the country, taking pictures and samples of God knows what as it floats above the country and spies on Americans even more than the NSA already does. Unfortunately for Americans who don’t want to be spied on by the Red Chinese, President Joe Biden has not yet shot down the balloon. Apparently, he received a call from Hunter Biden, who asked him to not shoot it down because he “has a friend” who wants to see it floating in the air for a bit longer. Maybe it’s trying to read those classified documents Biden took home.
Trump, however did not want the balloon to remain in the air, posting on Truth Social that it should be shot down. Similarly, Governor Ron DeSantis vowed to shoot it down if it entered Florida’s airspace using the jets at the disposal of the Florida Air National Guard.
The two men then saw an opportunity for compromise that would halt the potential for a GOP civil war. Taking it, they settled on a bet for the presidency: whoever managed to take down the balloon first would be the GOP candidate in 2024 and receive the full, unequivocal backing of the other. They shook on it and set to work trying to take down the CCP spying device.
DeSantis readied the Florida F-16s and ensured the pilots were ready to use either the air to air missiles on them or the 20mm cannons, while also leaning on the Naval Air Service assets in Florida to take a trip out of state and shoot down the balloon. They refused, unfortunately for DeSantis, giving Trump as long as it took for the balloon to float to Florida to try and shoot it down.
At first, he did so by using the Trump Organization’s helicopter to fly Don Jr. up to balloon height and try and shoot it down with an elephant rifle. Because of the heavy-duty mylar on the balloon and its self-repairing capabilities (adopted from self-sealing fuel tanks in fighter aircraft), that didn’t work: the rifle couldn’t make a large enough hole to take down the balloon before the outer shell repaired itself.
So, that gave Trump one option: he ordered the pilot to edge the helicopter closer and closer to the balloon in the helicopter until the four blades of the Sikorsky aircrafter were just close enought to start knicking the balloon’s skin, popping the thing and sending it plummeting to the ground, where curious locals poked at it. Pleased with himself, Trump had the helicopter flown back to Mar-a-Lago, where he met with DeSantis and received his full backing.
By: Will Tanner. Follow me on Twitter @Will_Tanner_1