Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio slammed White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Monday for having previously claimed the Chinese spy balloon was not conducting surveillance.

The Chinese spy balloon that floated for several days across the U.S. in February gathered information from U.S. military sites, despite assurances from U.S. officials the balloon was not doing so, NBC News reported, citing officials.

The Biden administration continually said steps were taken to protect sensitive sites, though the balloon picked up the data from the bases and transmitted it back to Beijing in real time.

Host Brian Kilmeade brought up the balloon. (RELATED: US Recovered Possible Spying Equipment From Downed Chinese Balloon)

“As you projected, that spy balloon that flew across the country was an active spy balloon that the Chinese were getting realtime intelligence from,” Kilmeade said. “Three officials says over military sites, we didn’t shoot it down and they were going over it, it would have been worse had we not obstructed its view. What can you tell us about the spy balloon that we mysteriously allowed to cross our country before shooting it down?”

“I can tell you without getting in trouble by revealing classified information, I can tell you what common sense already tells all of us, you don’t spend all this money and do something as daring as that, I’ll tell you, these spy balloons, I don’t know what people thought these were, these are not for some aerial episode of the Smithsonian, you know, taking pictures of the heartland, there is a reason why these things fly. They fly over the country to collect signals, intelligence. Part of it is a test to see whether they can penetrate our airspace and part of it is, frankly, collecting intelligence in realtime, video, signals, intelligence, still pictures fed back in realtime. That is what this was,” Rubio said.

Kilmeade then played footage of Kirby, who said the administration had “no specific reason” to believe the balloon was “conducting surveillance” and suggested the balloon was “probably for benign purposes” like “weather.”

“That is a blatant out right lie,” Rubio quipped.

WATCH:

“That’s a lie, it was a lie in February and a lie today in April, that is just not true,” he continued. “Everybody knows this was done for espionage. No one believes – I have never heard from anyone in the intelligence community this was for benign purposes. If for benign purposes, then why don’t we see more of them flying around? If they were for benign purposes there would have been no reason for them to notify us ahead of time.”

Rubio then said it is “time to wake up.”

“We’re in an era of conflict,” Rubio said.

“We have for the first time in 30 years … an adversary in China that intends to overtake, not overtake us by matching us, but overtake us by diminishing us even as they rise and we continue to see it to this day, in our trade policy and national security policy, and the way we’re talking about the spy balloon.”