Trump threatens to nuke NBC's broadcast license after blasting as 'pure fiction' a report that he wanted a massive new U.S. atomic weapons buildup
- Trump fired off two angry tweets following an NBC News report that he had asked his generals for a massive increase in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal
- NBC reported that Trump told the Pentagon brass that the stockpile should go from 4,000 warheads to 32,000, where it was at the end of the 1960s
- The president leaped to his Twitter app on Wednesday morning, calling NBC News 'fake' and saying it 'made up' the 'pure fiction' story
- Then he asked 'With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?'
Donald Trump reacted angrily on Wednesday to an NBC News report that claimed he asked the top Pentagon brass for a massive nuclear arms buildup.
'Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a "tenfold" increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal,' Trump tweeted. 'Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!'
CNN has until recently been the president's favorite target for accusations of broadcasting 'fake news.'
Eleven minutes later, Trump tweeted a warning shot that appeared to threaten action by the Federal Communications Commission: 'With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!'
President Donald Trump, shown in a meeting Tuesday with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, reportedly told his generals in July that he wanted a massive expansion of America's nuclear weapons arsenal
This 2014 file photo shows an inert Minuteman 3 missile in a training launch tube at Minot Air Force Base, in North Dakota; the base maintains 150 nuclear-tipped missiles spread out across the North Dakota countryside and keeps them ready to launch at a moment's notice as part of the US nuclear defense strategy
The pair of tweets came just before the president was scheduled to receive his daily intelligence briefing, according to a calendar the White House send reporters overnight.
NBC News reported that Trump told his top generals that the U.S. military's nuclear arsenal should be beefed up by a factor of ten, an observation that shocked senior military officers.
During the July meeting that led to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling the president a 'moron' – another piece of NBC reporting that the White House has ridiculed – Trump was shown a slide presentation that depicted America's nuclear stockpile diminishing during the past five decades.
An NBC News spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The president's concerns reportedly focused on the 'Nuclear Posture Review,' a periodic Pentagon effort scheduled for completion around the end of 2017.
'He's all in for modernization,' one official told the network. 'His concerns are the U.S. stopped investing in this.'
But Trump's top military advisers explained to him that expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal is impractical because of both budgets and treaty obligations.
Trump is 'all in for modernization' of America's nuclear weapons program, according to one person in the July meeting; some underground missile command consoles still look like something out of a Cold War movie set
In some cases, launch codes are contained on antiquated 8-inch floppy disks (left), and the physical launch mechanisms are still carried out by keys and flip-switches
America's overall military firepower, they said – which includes nuclear, conventional and next-generation weaponry – has left the U.S. better positioned for national defense than at the end of the Cold War, when the nuclear piece of the puzzle was larger than today's.
Trump was reacting to a slide that showed the U.S. with 32,000 nuclear warheads in the late 1960s, compared to what the Federation of American Scientists estimates as 4,000 today.
The president reportedly told his advisers that he wanted to see America back to 32,000.
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Russia has a stockpile estimated at 7,000, according to the Arms Control Association.
France is third in the nuclear arms race, with about 300.
Officials told NBC that they were surprised to hear Trump focus on enlarging America's nuclear weapons footprint.
The news comes at a time when Trump is expected within days to declare that Iran is not fulfilling its obligations under a 2015 anti-nuclear-proliferation deal it made with the Obama administration.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was heard calling Trump a 'moron' after the July meeting where the president said he wanted the U.S. nuclear stockpile to grow back to Cold War numbers
The Nobel Peace Prize this year went to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, an organization pushing for a global treaty to ban the cataclysmic bombs
At the same time, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un has been rattling his own nuclear sabers with test launches and underground detonations.
Trump said during his Inaugurul Address in January that the U.S. 'must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.'
Last week the Nobel Peace Prize went to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which has openly criticized Trump – and Kim – for making radioactive threats.
Nuclear weapons expert Joe Cirincione warned NBC News that Trump could easily launch a new global arms race if he were to start pouring money into nuclear expansion.
'If he were to increase the numbers, the Russians would match him, and the Chinese,' he said. 'There hasn't been a military mission that's required a nuclear weapon in 71 years.'
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