Scoop: Trump suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them from hitting U.S.
Source: Axios
President Trump has suggested multiple times to senior Homeland Security and national security officials that they explore using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States, according to sources who have heard the president's private remarks and been briefed on a National Security Council memorandum that recorded those comments.
Behind the scenes: During one hurricane briefing at the White House, Trump said, "I got it. I got it. Why don't we nuke them?" according to one source who was there. "They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can't we do that?" the source added, paraphrasing the president's remarks.
Asked how the briefer reacted, the source recalled he said something to the effect of, "Sir, we'll look into that."
Trump replied by asking incredulously how many hurricanes the U.S. could handle and reiterating his suggestion that the government intervene before they make landfall.
Read more: https://www.axios.com/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes-97231f38-2394-4120-a3fa-8c9cf0e3f51c.html
vercetti2021
(10,156 posts)This man is borderline on the edge of changing the dictionary meaning of stupidity
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)tclambert
(11,087 posts)Or did Trump sit on the remote and his TV switched to Syfy for a few minutes and he thought it was a documentary?
Botany
(70,517 posts).... sea creatures with radioactive fallout what could go wrong? He really is nuttier than
a squirrel turd and dumber than a bag of hammers.
Please tell me this is from the Onion.
KY_EnviroGuy
(14,492 posts)I suggest taking tRump out on a ship and let him do a rally speech against the early hurricane's wind. That would stop it instantly and save us pain in many ways.
KY.......
Jedi Guy
(3,193 posts)It's difficult to believe that anyone could be this monumentally stupid. And just like all his other imbecilic statements, he'll try to laugh this off as a joke.
Every day with Dolt 45 in office is more unsettling and frightening than the last. When he leaves office in 2021, the headlines had better be "our long national nightmare is finally over."
ancianita
(36,095 posts)JohnnyRingo
(18,636 posts)Throw in a couple Sharknados and a Rainforest Fire and we'll be doing just fine on disasters.
He's going to get a full chapter in the history books one way or another.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)initially wrote the article but he was defending t-rump for asking "tough" questions and said that the first impression people would get from the article would be that t-rump was "a little off" and the host on CNN said ya think (not quite the exact wording for both) . . .
What idiot would ask a question like that?
Yours truly - shithole.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)I know it's not The Onion or Borowitz, but it can't actually be true, can it? I mean even Trump...well, okay. :sigh:
Of course, White House Press Sec will say he was joking, like she did about Chosen One. But this is the guy who talked about raking forests, windmills that cause cancer, etc. I guess nuking hurricanes isn't unusual by Trumpian standards.
cstanleytech
(26,298 posts)Of course I was all of 7 or 8 at the time so atleast I have a valid excuse for wondering why they did not consider doing that.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)A different senior administration official, who has been briefed on the president's hurricane bombing suggestion, defended Trump's idea and said it was no cause for alarm. "His goal to keep a catastrophic hurricane from hitting the mainland is not bad," the official said. "His objective is not bad."
"What people near the president do is they say 'I love a president who asks questions like that, whos willing to ask tough questions.' ... It takes strong people to respond to him in the right way when stuff like this comes up. For me, alarm bells weren't going off when I heard about it, but I did think somebody is going to use this to feed into 'the president is crazy' narrative."
Basically the defense is "He meant well."
happybird
(4,608 posts)between "tough questions" and downright stupid questions. I don't know how or why it still happens, but his utter stupidity can still take me by surprise every now and then. Like today. Ugh.
How did he manage to survive to adulthood? I seriously wonder about that sometimes.
icymist
(15,888 posts)Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)that we could e-mail it to trumpie and he could finally understand why this is the stupidest fucking idea he ever had.
Talitha
(6,593 posts)If it stops that whirlwind of hot air, it just might work on a hurricane.
Blue Owl
(50,427 posts)Maybe even the best ideas, when it comes to that...
47of74
(18,470 posts)Sugar Smack
(18,748 posts)It's just really hard to have a sense of humor about this. Which is why at 1st glance I thought it belonged in GD. Like the Onion. Borrowitz. What a horribly exhausting week.
WhoWoodaKnew
(847 posts)They put him in charge.
And all because one black dude got elected.
LudwigPastorius
(9,155 posts)groundloop
(11,519 posts)Danmel
(4,916 posts)"What people near the president do is they say 'I love a president who asks questions like that, whos willing to ask tough questions.' ... It takes strong people to respond to him in the right way when stuff like this comes up. For me, alarm bells weren't going off when I heard about it, but I did think somebody is going to use this to feed into 'the president is crazy' narrative."
George II
(67,782 posts)Grins
(7,218 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)Mrs. Overall
(6,839 posts)I thought this was satire when I glanced at the headline.
Ponietz
(2,985 posts)procon
(15,805 posts)Trump knows nothing about:
Weather
Nuclear fallout
Radioactive contamination
Trump really wants to use a nuclear bomb on something so he can claim to be the only president daring enough to use it. If he's thinking about nuking storms off the coast of Africa, then what's to stop him from bombing the unworthy people who live in those "shit hole" countries?
Lock him up.
(6,933 posts)It would make the storm more destructive, maybe enough to invent a new category for it. It could wipe out an entire continent! Not to forget the spreading of radio-active particles...
Putin would not be happier to see it strike the US...
Yavin4
(35,442 posts)On their best day, they could not come up with better material. It's over for them. They are done.
PatSeg
(47,501 posts)that isn't being leaked. He is terrifyingly stupid.
tclambert
(11,087 posts)They try nuking a hurricane because nobody listens to the scientists anymore . . . and it makes the hurricane stronger . . . and radioactive. Plus the sharks sucked up by the hurricane become radioactive and grow to enormous size. We're almost into a Godzilla movie at this point.
Fortunately, a chaotician, possibly played by Jeff Goldblum, designs a simulation on a supercomputer that gives him the answer and he flies to Australia with a butterfly he has trained to flap its wings in just the right way to cause a ripple effect that disrupts the hurricane. However, at the end of the movie, we see that the giant radioactive sharks still threaten the shipping lanes. Sequel time!
Lock him up.
(6,933 posts)Get "still sane" guys at the Pentagon to make a fake nuke launching pad with fake launching codes, then create a 3D-animation on an OLED screen of a nuke detonating in the eye of the hurricane drumph would want to nuke: then after it wouldn't have worked (since it'd be all fake), just tell him it didn't work...
tulipsandroses
(5,124 posts)Something he heard in passing on some stupid talk radio show or on his twitter feed or one of his favorite right wing conspiracy sites?
He's been using the internet long enough to discern valid information. But noooo, he's like your old great grandpa just learning to use the internet and thinks he really is getting millions of dollars from a prince. He just digests everything and spits it back out. He has all the intelligence at his fingertips, yet he still relies on random internet information from random places. Incredible!
Baclava
(12,047 posts)A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20 x10 to the 13th watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind. The heat release is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/energy-hurricane-volcano-earthquake1.htm
usaf-vet
(6,189 posts)usaf-vet
(6,189 posts)Locrian
(4,522 posts)but is it any stupider that a lot of the "action" or "superhero" type movies out there? (yeah, I know - it's just fantasy, etc, bla bla bla).
We're anti-science - living in escapist fantasy and value stupidity in this country. Idiocity is here.
lark
(23,105 posts)That's why he is always, always, wanting to use nukes and for SK to go nuclear, along with any other country from which he would wring a profit. It's always about him and his personal money or power, and now the fucking ass wants to nuke a hurricane? His stupidity is actually almost beyond belief. He has 2 golf courses in FL which is home central for hurricanes and he is so stupid he wants to risk destroying them from nuke fallout?? This is just unbelievable but so sadly true and a constant refrain from him even before the election.
Democrats_win
(6,539 posts)" there was a time when scientists and government agencies were themselves seriously considering the nuclear option. In a speech delivered at the National Press Club on October 11, 1961, Francis W. Riechelderfer, the head of the U.S. Weather Bureau, said he could imagine the possibility someday of exploding a nuclear bomb on a hurricane far at sea. (Although, comfortingly, Riechelderfer added that the Weather Bureau would not begin acquiring its own nuclear arsenal until we know what were doing.) there was a time when scientists and government agencies were themselves seriously considering the nuclear option. In a speech delivered at the National Press Club on October 11, 1961, Francis W. Riechelderfer, the head of the U.S. Weather Bureau, said he could imagine the possibility someday of exploding a nuclear bomb on a hurricane far at sea. (Although, comfortingly, Riechelderfer added that the Weather Bureau would not begin acquiring its own nuclear arsenal until we know what were doing.)
Needless to say, this is not a good idea, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in what is, arguably, one of the most succinct understatements on record.
Yet because the nuke a hurricane myth wont die, NOAA maintains a web page exclusively devoted to debunking this proposal. (Similarly, the U.S. Geological Survey has an online report debunking divining rods and water dowsing. Its not always easy being a government scientist.)
--
It's sad that Trump continues to bring up old ideas that are now known to be very BAD ideas.
Note,the Harper's Magazine article January 2006, "Owning the Weather, the ugly Politics of the Pathetic Fallacy" describes one scientist, Jon Von Neumann, who thought of the idea too. His team made "the world's first numerical weather forecasts." (Computer models are widely used in forecasting today!) They saw it as a weapon to change the weather. Of course they didn't totally appreciate the problem of fallout at that time. This Harper's article was a brilliant essay and is sadly behind their paywall. It even inspired a movie, Owning the Weather. Of course the idea of weather modification ranges from complete fraud to legitimate/dangerous cloud seeding and areas of military research.
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)He probably wanted to drop nukes when he was a kid.