NBC reported yesterday that President Donald Trump said to his military advisors in a Pentagon meeting on July 20 this year, “why doesn’t our nuclear arsenal look more like that?” He had just been shown material revealing that during the 1960s, the U.S. had something like 30,000 nuclear weapons due to its arms race with the Soviet Union. Nowadays, as a result of decades of nuclear disarmament agreements with the Soviet Union and then Russia, the Russians have a total nuclear arsenal of 7,000 nuclear weapons and the U.S. has 6,800 such weapons. It also was reported that Trump then said that our nuclear arsenal should be “ten times” greater in number than it is. NBC says it obtained this information from three sources who were present in that meeting.
It also was reported that shortly afterwards at the Pentagon, either the same day or the next day, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called his boss, President Trump, “a moron.” That is very disturbing. When first questioned by the media, Tillerson did not deny he said it. Later, he did deny it. One wonders if Tillerson can be believed about that.
Donald Trump has been quite inconsistent in the past two years in his remarks about nuclear weapons. He has said that the world would be better off without them. At the same time he says the U.S. should have more than any other nation. Does he not understand the arms race of the Cold War. It was insane! At least the world now has a lot fewer nuclear weapons than back then. If Trump had his way, a lot more than two nations would enter into a big nuclear arms race. He once said of the North Korea threat and the U.S. having an alliance with non-nuclear weapon nations South Korea and Japan, that they “need to get their own nuclear weapons.”
Donald Trump could set the world back many decades with his pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord and now him wanting to restart another nuclear arms race.
Today, while meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump denied that he said our nuclear arsenal should be “ten times” greater than it is. Perhaps there is some nuance of words, here. Maybe Trump asked his military advisors why our nuclear arsenal isn’t ten times greater rather than saying it should be that.
Regardless, Trump claimed he said nothing of the sort. He alleged this report was “fake news.” He then questioned why the media is allowed to turn out such falsehood. Then he counter attacked, as is his constant style. He said such media sources should have their license, granted by the FCC, questioned due to reporting fake news. It seems Trump always accuses the media of reporting “fake” stuff rather than “lying.” At least they print it or say it on TV, so there is a record. Trump gets to say stuff in private in which there is no record.
President Trump then explained that he listens to his advisors but that he has the best insight in what should be done as president. He said, “I’m stronger and tougher than a lot of people are on North Korea.” He added, “ultimately, I will do what’s right for the United States and, really, for the world.” Said by a president who doesn’t read. He has said publicly, and as president, that he thinks he is gifted with insight. Oh my gosh!
Oh my gosh! This sounds to me like megalomania. I think it’s very frightening. People need to tape his private conversations and prove what he says when he later denies saying it. Bring forth the tapes as they did with President Richard Nixon in Watergate.
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