Scarborough: Trump Kept Asking During Foreign Policy Briefing Why He Can’t Just Use Nukes

[kpete]

As Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough tells it, Donald Trump asked not once, not twice, but three times about nuclear weapons during a foreign policy briefing with an expert. "Trump asked three times in an hour briefing, 'Why can't we use nuclear weapons?'"Scarborough said on Wednesday's episode of Morning Joe, as a panel discussed concerns about how Trump might handle national security. At one point, Scarborough said, Trump even asked, "'If we have them, why can't we use them?'"

After the panel managed to wipe the stunned looks off their faces, Scarborough's co-host, Mika Brzezinski, fired off a warning: "Be careful America, and be careful Republican leaders," she said.


VIDEO & MORE:
http://theweek.com/speedreads/640664/joe-scarborough-claims-donald-trump-repeatedly-asked-foreign-policy-adviser-why-cant-use-nuclear-weapons
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/report-trump-kept-asking-during-foreign-policy-briefing-why-he-cant-just-use-nukes/
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-missiles-nukes-button-launch-foreign-policy-213955
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/08/03/3804589/scarborough-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-msnbc/

[RichGirl]

1. What a piece of crap that man is!

Referring to Trump. Neither he or his sons enlisted. The only shooting they did was exotic animals. Yet he thinks he's fit to send others to war.

I am SO glad and grateful to republicans for finally seeing and some even acknowledging that TRUMP IS CRAZY.

[Hortensis]

23. Agree. But Trump can't help himself. Mika and Joe have

increasingly become part of a political illness, along with most of the "very serious people" on TV--but on purpose. Imo, they and all those like them are evidence of a widespread American character disorder.

[keithbvadu2]

36. Although he served, Bush made sure his butt never went off to war.

He had no problem sending others off to die for his oil pals.

[jpak]

2. He'll just double down and his minions will cheer

yup

[Gothmog]

3. Trump is an idiot and a fool

[cynzke]

37. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THIS STORY HAS MADE HEADLINES.

Here is Trump spokesperson and petty welfare cheat, Katrina Pierson repeating the same obsession to use nuclear weapons. Imagine her egging Trump on to use those weapons the first time an international crisis arises. "GO FOR IT MR. PREZ....YOU KNOW YOU WANT TOO!"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3366752/Trump-spokeswoman-fire-suggesting-not-afraid-use-nuclear-weapons.html

[Rose Siding]

4. That one incident alone disqualifies him. There are a dozen others.

I seriously can't believe there are enough idiot Americans for him to get anywhere. Repub primary voters, sure, but that's not representative of society as a whole.

[Thinkingabout]

7. Yes, true, this alone disqualifies him and there have been more incidents, yes, Americans wake up.

The Republicans has not presented a qualified candidate, if he was the Democratic nominee I could not vote for him. Yes I would have to leave DU but it is country over party for me with this crazy one.

[napkinz]

59. I'm not seeing much coverage of this story on any of the cable news networks.

This should be a top story.

[ailsagirl]

63. MSNBC is all over it

Chris, Rachel, especially Lawrence

Lawrence went into quite a bit of detail about "the football" and "the biscuit"

I had to turn it off

[napkinz]

71. yes, I saw that segment on Lawrence last night

the thought of Trump having access to "the football"

[ailsagirl]

72. He was very precise in his description about how the whole thing works

Yes, I found it very frightening

This whole thing has gotten completely out of control and I don't know what's going to stop it

[napkinz]

73. what's going to stop it ... getting out the vote!

WE have to stop it.

[ailsagirl]

74. We WILL stop it

GOTV!!!!

[Separation]

77. It is or was on the Homepage of msn.com

Im not sure if its still there...Just checked, it not on the front page anymore, but a few of the trump stories will lead to it at the bottom.

[superpatriotman]

5. Can't say I don't believe it but

Would appreciate third-party confirmation.

[hughee99]

9. Yes, Donald trump was in the room with a bunch of people

Whose job is to keep secrets. This story sounds a little sketchy to me unless Trump confirms it himself.

[exboyfil]

10. Exactly

When a story is too good to be true, I look for the trap hidden with the bait. Look no further than the Killian documents.

[smirkymonkey]

6. I used to think he was just a joke, but every day he just gets more and more horrifying.

This man cannot become president. The future of the entire world is at stake.

[kysrsoze]

76. Trump is the character played by Martin Sheen in The Dead Zone

If the bullets were flying in that recent rally where he kicked out the baby, he would have used it as a shield.

[exboyfil]

8. I am sorry I have a tough time

accepting what Scarborough says without further verification. I would not follow him down a rabbit hole on his credibility.

My question is what is his source and are they willing to come forward for the good of the country.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Apparently a drunk Pres. Nixon ordered nuclear attacks once. Kissinger ignored him. . . nt

[Buckeye_Democrat]

13. Nixon never ordered it

He was recorded debating it with him, with Kissinger wisely talking him out of it.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Ah, that would be the source of the story. Thanks. . . nt

[Buckeye_Democrat]

22. It's possible

... that your scenario happened as well?

I only heard the Nixon tapes in which he mentioned the idea of ending the Vietnam conflict with nukes as Kissinger strongly advised against it.

[gordianot]

21. Alexander Haig as Chief of Nixon's staff informed the Pentagon not to follow Nixon's orders.....

Without Haig's signature verification. Legend has it Haig was also armed in the presence of the Chief executive. So it has always sounded to me like a coup did happen. Kissinger was party to these proceedings.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. This is the MAIN argument against him

Set aside the racism, misogyny and other faults.

I think many of Trump's supporters have no idea how easily a new President could start a nuclear war.

The President appoints his Secretary of Defense. In Trump's case, he just might appoint a fellow nitwit like Sarah Palin!

All it take is for the President and Secretary of Defense to both send their codes ordering nuclear strikes. There's no bureaucratic safeguards against insanity from those two high-level positions! The main focus of the established protocol is verification that the orders indeed came from the POTUS and SoD, and years of training to ensure that the orders are obeyed.

[Gabi Hayes]

31. sec def uday.....chief of staff qusay

[Buckeye_Democrat]

40. Holy crap!

I didn't even think of THEM!

[Ligyron]

47. What's up with that greasy hair?

Wait, is that sexist?

It was when I said that about DWS.

The only hide I ever got and haven't been asked to serve on a jury since.

[Gabi Hayes]

49. you watch it, you! it took three or four hides before they stopped asking me

uday was on the other day, talking about sexual harassment. he has beady, wet, oozing, pink eye sockets

it was great!!!!!

[emulatorloo]

51. Brilliant!

[jtuck004]

68. It also takes a military that would obey the order w/o question. We do not

have that.

We do on tv and in books. In practice we have never been able to achieve it.

If the big orange cowbell gets in there, we may well see a spate of disobedience, and I wouldn't put a coup out of the question if he really tries to mount some of the actions he has mentioned.

The people who trained on these know damn good and well the consequences of firing those up. They are some of the smartest and most professional people around, as are their generals. One would be mistaken to think all the swindler has to do is get elected to start an aggressive nuclear war.

[Capt. Obvious]

15. The Daisy Commercial writes itself.

[malthaussen]

16. If one can trust Mr Scarborough, that is.

Not that I find the story incredible, but the source is suspect.

-- Mal

[Moostache]

17. "Its designed for speed and decisiveness. It's not designed to debate the decision."

THAT answer is terrifying.
The question from Scarbum was "How long is the delay between the decision to use nukes and the launch?"

If this is confirmed information, then Trump must never be allowed to take the oath of office under ANY circumstances.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

19. True

Look up "nuclear football" and the steps necessary to order nuclear strikes.

There's codes needed from POTUS and his appointed Secretary of Defense (who would probably be just as crazy as Trump), with focus on ensuring that the orders came from them. The protocol is focused on ensuring that the orders came from them, not that the orders are sane.

[Ilsa]

18. And Gen. Hayden said it's a fast procedure to implement nukes,

not a deliberative process involving checks and balances. He said he and other security experts worry about a Trump CIC upsetting the military's deference to civilian leadership (by ordering an attack they'd find unconscionable).

[AwakeAtLast]

20. Joe was also calling Trump a Democrat

And blaming Bill Clinton for encouraging Trump to run.

[The Wielding Truth]

24. And that's why all those crazy "Independents" voted for him.....He's another propagandist!

[napkinz]

25. good grief!

[Hoyt]

26. And that is exactly why other countries want nukes. If Iraq had actually had nukes, we never would

have invaded them.

[n2doc]

27. ...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

28. He's so damn petty and vindictive

... that I don't consider that cartoon to be totally unrealistic!

It would more likely be some other country's leader who would hurt his po' widdle feewings, though.

[napkinz]

35. ...

[SunSeeker]

42. ^^^THIS^^^

[napkinz]

56. Katrina Pierson, Trump spokeswoman, asked ...

"What good does it do to have a good nuclear triad if you’re afraid to use it?"

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/12/19/3734020/trump-nuclear-weapons/

[ailsagirl]

64. There is no button-- this from WaPo

-snip-

Fact check: There is no button.

There is a briefcase, though.

It follows the president everywhere — onto Air Force One, onto the golf course, onto elevators. Inside is a manual for conducting nuclear war. A how-to, really.

The briefcase is aluminum, 45 pounds, clad in leather and descends from a line of durable, airtight cases made specially for Erle P. Halliburton, the oil-field engineer who founded the company that would become infamous because of its associations with Dick Cheney, the Iraq war and the Deepwater Horizon oil leak.

Carrying the briefcase is a job shared among five military aides, one from each branch of the U.S. armed forces. The manual inside is more like a takeout menu, but instead of picking between numbered Chinese dishes, the president would choose cities or military installations in, say, Russia or China (or both) to attack.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/nervous-about-nukes-again-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-button-there-is-no-button/2016/08/03/085558b6-4471-11e6-8856-f26de2537a9d_story.html

[Motley13]

29. Show the fool this video

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/videos/atomic-bomb?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false


Another fool


"There is a growing body of evidence that radiation in excess of what the government says are the minimum amounts you should be exposed to are actually good for you and reduce cases of cancer."

— Ann Coulter on Thursday, March 17th, 2011 in Fox's "O'Reilly Factor"


The nuclear weapons today are way more powerful.

[SDJay]

30. Didn't This Joe Doofus

help create this monster with his colleague by constantly bringing him on the show and kissing his feet? Didn't I see some story once where they caught some audio during a commercial where they agreed not to ask him hard questions or something?

If any of that is true, this Scarborough turd can go ahead and apologize to the country on his show tomorrow, since he had a hand in this whole disaster.

[Gabi Hayes]

33. they used to vacay together. he talked about a lot, as recently as a month or so ago.

major douche as a slimy congressman, who left his family, iirc

[klook]

34. Correctamundo

Joe Scumbucket & Mika also palled around with Drumpf in his hotel suite while they were helping to legitimize him.

[SDJay]

54. Thanks. That's What I Thought.

In that case, fuck them. They're as responsible for this as anyone.

[klook]

57. Scarborough has denied it, of course,

but there are reports that he & Mika did indeed visit Trump the evening of the New Hampshire primary. (Take that with a grain of salt, if you like, since CNN is an arch-rival of MSNBC, but still -- there's no denying that the Morning Jeaux crew behaved more like fans than journalists during the Trump build-up.)

[SDJay]

58. Ugh. Thanks.

I appreciate the links as they were informative. That said, my brain hurts.

[wheniwasincongress]

69. Yes and Joe would talk about how he and Trump would talk on the phone

and Joe would give him debate pointers during the GOP primary

But whenever Joe and Mika get criticized for their comfy, super-tolerant relationship with Trump, they say that people are jealous of them because they always stated that Trump could win the GOP primary.

[bucolic_frolic]

32. Just an ordinary run-of-the-mill

madman, 1930s style

Everything else has been a coverup

as he gets closer to gaining power the truth is leaking out

We are *very* fortunate all this is coming out now, before it's too late

[Tommy_Carcetti]

38. As I said, a true Madman.

He'd be the end of us.

[SummerSnow]

39. NUKES ARE NOT A DAMN GROCERY COUPON ABOUT TO EXPIRE YOU JACKASS!!!!!

[maryellen99]

41. To the ones who's saying this story is suspect

Don't forget his Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson was on tv and said "what is the point of having nuclear weapons if you can't use them"?

[cannabis_flower]

43. What is the source

I know Joe Scarborough said it on MSNBC but I'm sure he wasn't there so who told him this? I don't actually doubt it but I would rather use someone besides Joe Scarborough as my source because the person who actually told Joe this would be much more credible.

[maryellen99]

52. It's from the lips of his spokeswoman Katrina Pierson

I have no doubt Trump asked.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/trump-spokesperson-why-bother-having-nuclear-weapons-if-youre-afraid-to-use-them/

[cannabis_flower]

53. The video is no longer available

and the article doesn't say anything about Trump asking that.. Basically it is Katrina Pierson asking that.

[sarchasm]

44. Trump just put a giant, glowing fluorescent target on our heads ..

.. not that there wasn't one already.

But, this is different being a candidate for the Presidency.

Maybe moving to an island in the Pacific isn't such a bad idea after all.

[SunSeeker]

45. Why did Scarborough sit on this news for DAYS?!

Scarborough learned of the exchange “in the last few days,”

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57a1e47ae4b0693164c347d0

Could you imagine how fast he would have divulged this if it was Hillary who said this insane shit?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

46. Even Charles Krauthammer

... doesn't trust Trump with the nukes (start around 7:40):

[loyalsister]

48. Why should this be a surprise?

This is a guy who rejects all criticism as invalid and has no concern for the fact that people who do not support him even exist. It seems like he sees the presidency as another reality TV show that he seems to want to turn into an action movie with a hero who dominates the world.

[Oneironaut]

50. This psychopath is going to kill everyone. He's a modern day Caligula.

He would drop a nuke just for the enjoyment of watching people burn. From that day forward, nuclear weapons become a precedent in conflict. We'll annihilate ourselves through nuclear winter.

[napkinz]

55. Trump surrogate of course denying Trump ever had that briefing or asked those questions

right now on MSNBC

[lindysalsagal]

60. I dunno..Joe loves his gop, hates dems. Kinda hard to

Find a different motive for such a huge statement. Why would he threaten his beloved gop?

[tclambert]

61. But nuclear explosions are so pretty!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

62. I can just picture the Right claiming there are benefits to using nukes....

Global Warming? Meet Nuclear Winter.

Overpopulation? The bulk of the dead will not be white.

[Blue Owl]

65. He wants to get his little hands on that big red button

[AllyCat]

66. He's stupid. Isn't he? He's stupid? Mean? Suicidal? Homicidal?

What do you mean, why can't we? He is dangerous at best.

[Warren DeMontague]

67. SOMEONE ON TWITTER MADE FUN OF MY HANDS!

[wheniwasincongress]

70. Why is Joe just telling this now

Why has he been sitting on this for "months" as he said

[KingCharlemagne]

75. Media should hammer him on this and to name his source. The number of

experts in nuclear deterrence and foreign policy is very small. Who the fuck advised Trump and got the shit scared out of him or her?