Trump wants to expand U.S. nuclear arsenal, make it 'top of the pack': Reuters interview

[highplainsdem]

Source: Reuters

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the "top of the pack," saying the United States has fallen behind in its atomic weapons capacity.

-snip-

On another front, Trump said China could solve the national security challenge posed by North Korea "very easily if they want to," ratcheting up pressure on Beijing to exert more influence to rein in Pyongyang's increasingly bellicose actions.

Speaking from behind his desk in the Oval Office, Trump also declared himself "very angry" at North Korea's ballistic missile tests and said accelerating a missile defense system for U.S. allies Japan and South Korea was among many options available.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-idUSKBN1622IF?il=0

[pangaia]

1. Does this idiot have any idea how many bombs and missile we already have??

I mean, HOW MANY does one need to destroy life on the planet?

[RKP5637]

7. Don't quote me, but it seems at one time the US had a kill rate of 50:1, enought nuclear

file power to kill every living being on the planet earth 50 times. I guess that's not enough for president asshole.

[yeoman6987]

18. His point is china and Russia have more.

[pangaia]

21. Looks like Russia, yes.. but not by much... :))

Something like 7250 to our 7000. Depends how they are counted.. LOL!!
China has about 50..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons

[Kingofalldems]

36. There you go again yeoman6987, jumping in to defend Trump.

Any stats to offer?

[Kingofalldems]

37. What was his point in contacting the FBI?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028699137

[yardwork]

41. Nobody would survive use of a tenth of what we have.

Nuclear weapons aren't like bullets. It only takes a few to wipe out the planet. We all have more than enough.

[True Dough]

2. Oh, well, there we have it!

Donny Trump is "very angry." That should certainly make Kim Jong Un think twice before launching another nuclear-capable missile.

Remember during the campaign when Drumpf said he would talk to Kim? Why doesn't he fly the North Korean leader over the Mar-a-Lago for some golf this weekend?

[Fast Walker 52]

9. I really would rather not read an article talking about nuclear weapons and Trump being mad

[True Dough]

13. I can understand

You would have to be one heck of a "Fast Walker" to get beyond the fallout!

[VMA131Marine]

26. I see what you did there!

Good one

[jmowreader]

40. He wouldn't do it for two reasons

Trump hates Kim's guts, and KJU doesn't play golf. That was his father.

Oh, and I found out the truth of Kim Jong Il's infamous round of golf, in which he hit five holes-in-one on his very first round...http://www.golf.com/golf-plus/behind-kim-jong-ils-famous-round-golf

Turns out that KJI's caddy was scoring him "relative to par." Par, as most Americans know, is the number of strokes a good golfer should need to play the hole. The way almost everyone marks their scorecards is by writing down the number of times he or she hits the ball to put it in the cup. KJI's caddy was writing down the number of shots OVER PAR Dear Leader was hitting - if they were on a par-3 hole and Kim made 4 shots, his caddy wrote down a 1. At the end of the round, Kim was 38 strokes over par...which is about average for someone's first time on a golf course. When he got the card back to the clubhouse, the pro there didn't know Kim had shot 38 over par, and thought he just shot 38. So sorry.

[mn9driver]

3. This is what happens when you elect someone with tiny hands.

[Fast Walker 52]

10. LOL-- seriously.

[dalton99a]

4. Demented moron talking out of his ass, as usual

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. He knows more than the generals. NT

[HAB911]

6. what's the worst that could happen

and we thought we had moved past MAD

[Fast Walker 52]

8. what does he want to do? Does he even know?

we are already set to modernize and upgrade our nukes

[Angry Dragon]

25. he wants this

[Fast Walker 52]

31. gee, I feel so much better now...

It was really weird when at one debate they asked him about global warming and he said the real warming we should worry about is from nukes. Like WTF.

[BadGimp]

11. This is how the resident of the UNited States spoke about China influencing N Korea..

Trump said China could solve the national security challenge posed by North Korea "very easily if they want to,"

Very presidential indeed.

[NurseJackie]

12. Why? How many times over do we need to be able to destroy the planet? Isn't once enough?

[avebury]

27. Exactly nt

[yallerdawg]

14. When he's through...

we'll have "the biggest, most beautiful nuclear arsenal in the world!"

Which means he just needs to add gold curtains in the silos!

[Botany]

15. The man is insane.

We have 32 nuclear missile subs in the USN and each sub has up to 24 missiles
and each missile can have up to 12 H bombs with a range of > 5,000 miles.

So the math is 32 x 24 = 768 missile that can have up 12 warheads

768 x 12 = 9,216 H bombs. One H bomb around St. Louis would make
millions of acres of cropland unuseable for God only knows how long.

For God's sake we need to get that man out of the White House before it is
too late. He spends too much time talking and thinking about nuclear war.

2/16/17 "We're a very powerful nuclear country and so are they," Mr Trump said. "I've been briefed.
And I can tell you one thing about a briefing that we're allowed to say, because anybody that ever
read the most basic book can say it, nuclear holocaust would be like no other." D. Trump


Every President from Nixon on have worked at reducing the # of nuclear weapons
world wide because they are really expensive and we can never ever use them
because it would end life on this planet.

[Ray Bruns]

23. Actually, we have 18, not 32. but 18 gets the job done.

18 subs, but not all can be at sea at the same time.
Figure 4 boats on patrol at any one time. 4X24X8 = 768 475kT warheads.
They are already planning a replacement sub.

[Botany]

32. I read that we have 18 Ohio class subs and 14 trident class subs .....

..... and that is where I came up w/the # 32.

This does not count land based missiles, or weapons on aircraft.

Still you are right about 478 H bombs being more than enough that the
living would envy the dead.

I read some place that we have a little less then 7,000 nuclear warheads
and Russia has about the same # too. But once you set off more than
20 or 30 it is game over.

[NNadir]

16. What we need to do is to dismantle the majority of the weapons we have, take any weapons grade...

...plutonium we have from this process and put it into reactors to denature it while breeding new lower grade plutonium..

As it happens, this plutonium could very well be utilized to seriously address climate change. The world inventory of plutonium (including reactor grade) is sufficient to provide about 174 exajoules of energy per year, about 1/3 of the energy humanity consumes each year.

In some ways, this plutonium is the last best hope of the human race, but only if it's used by wise people. The opposite is true if it is used by fools.

The United States by the way, no longer has the capability to produce weapons grade plutonium, which is, of course, a good thing, given that a fool occupies the White House.

[Initech]

17. Let me guess - Fox News told him what to think on this issue?

[lark]

19. Hair Furor!

A calamity a minute. He's so freaking greedy, he really wants to push nukes because he has zero clue about the world ending threat they are. To his little pea-brain, he just wants the biggest and best toys and wants to use them whenever he feels like it. We are so fucked!

[Blue_Tires]

20. yep... draining the swamp, or something...

But Hillary was the REAL war candidate, or so people told me...

[JHB]

22. I swear, the Republican view of the world is frozen in the late 70s...

...except for the "get their marching orders straight from the Kremlin" business. They had to switch to Soros because they took up the Kremlin gig.

[Ray Bruns]

24. We have plenty of warheads, the only thing needing replaced are the old Minutman III icbms.

We have over 4000 warheads in our stockpile, about 1900 deployed ready for use. Seems enough to do the job.

Spending money just so you can have more warheads than the other guy is a waste of money. But that has never stopped drumpf before (See 25 billion dollar wall on the border with Mexico).

As I said, the only thing needing replacement our Minuteman III icbms. They were built in the 70's and are entering the end of their life span.

[JHan]

28. This man breathes, injects, spouts bullshit 24/7

[Wellstone ruled]

29. This is all about pay back to the

Uranium interests including the Russian Interests. We have been hearing stories about Nuke Testing and it's resumption .

[avebury]

30. And does he actually think that he and his grifter family

could actually survive a nuclear holocaust? Well that is one way to get him out of office. Unfortunately it would destroy the entire country (as well as the planet) in the process.

[RAFisher]

33. He didn't even know what the START Treaty until last week. This monster needs to be stoped.

He's going to kill alot of people.

[moondust]

34. More and bigger is always better, right?

Even Reagan wasn't this dumb.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

35. Stupid ignorant imbecile wants to ignite a nuclear arms race. Reagan spins in his grave.

Trump conservative? Hah! Reckless, spendy, dangerous.

[neeksgeek]

38. Hey, if you're going to blow up the world, you want to do a GREAT job.

Edited to add: Maybe this is their plan. Blow up all the poor people while the 1% hunker down in their bunkers waiting for the radioactive fallout to fade. Then they'll come out and #profit!

[Flatpicker]

39. Nothing more

Than old men with outdated ideas looking to fight the last war over again.

What a waste of resources.