Rep. Seth Moulton said the U.S. needs a plan to deal with a potential nuclear war with Russia.
He reiterated his earlier claims that the U.S. could literally become involved in a nuclear war with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And he noted Russia has changed its nuclear doctrine.
"For a long time, Russia and the United States had this sort of mutual agreement, mutually assured destruction, that if they shot all their weapons at us, we would shoot all our weapons at them," the Massachusetts Democrat told CNN's "New Day" program Friday.
"And therefore a nuclear war was unlikely to happen.
"But what Russia now says is that they will 'escalate to deescalate.' They are willing to use nuclear weapons to deescalate a conventional attack. I think that the problem here is that we don't really have a plan to deal with that."
He noted that Russia starts using nuclear weapons against U.S. allies in Europe, "we may well use nukes in retaliation," said Moulton
And he asked: "What if they target American troops — like the American troops who are training right now in Poland — with a nuclear attack?
"What are we going to do and how quickly can that get out of control? That is why this is such a serious threat and why the Trump administration has got to take this more seriously."
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., in a column published by The Guardian newspaper in Great Britain, maintained Russia has placed Europe "in the shadow of a potential nuclear conflict."
"Last week in testimony before Congress, U.S. military officials confirmed that Russia has taken another step in shredding Europe's security defenses by covertly deploying a land-based cruise missile capable of targeting the continent with nuclear weapons," he said.
"Russia's deployment of these missiles is a serious threat to the United States and our allies."
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