Miles Taylor, who served as a senior Homeland Security official under the first Trump administration, warned Monday that President Donald Trump has spent years indulging in “nuclear fantasies,” and that recent developments suggest Trump may be edging closer to acting on them.
“Between Trump’s unchecked brinksmanship, possible nuclear proliferation to new countries, and broken treaties, you have a radioactive cocktail being stirred on the international stage,” Taylor wrote in an analysis published Monday on his Substack.
“Add in the unresolved war with Iran, and you get the picture of a president who’s just one mood swing away from putting his finger on the proverbial red button.”
Taylor recalled that during Trump’s first term, the president “fantasized quite openly to advisers about wanting to blow up bombs,” prompting then-Defense Secretary James Mattis to order Homeland Security officials to prepare contingency plans for a potential nuclear strike on American soil.
Taylor pointed to Trump’s recent comments to Axios, in which the president said he was “close” to ordering a “massive attack” on Iran – rhetoric Taylor compared to Trump’s April warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”
Compounding the concern, Taylor noted, was the administration’s new nuclear energy deal with Saudi Arabia, which omits standard safeguards giving international inspectors expanded access to nuclear sites. A former International Atomic Energy Agency official said “the U.S. should never have agreed to enrichment without a really strong inspections regime,” Taylor noted.
Taylor also cited the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which in January set its Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight it has ever been in its 79-year history.
“So why does he keep doing this? Why does the president of the United States keep circling back to the most dangerous machinery humans have ever built?” Taylor mused.
“I can’t tell you his answer for sure. But based on close study of the man, I can give you my best guess. Donald Trump has spent his entire presidency on a power quest, always hunting for the next most powerful thing he can do. And nuclear weapons are at the top of that list.”
Why does Trump keep toying with nuclear bombs? I think I know why. by Miles Taylor
The president has terrified close advisers with the prospect of nuclear escalation. Now, he’s spreading his radioactive dreams overseas.
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