President Donald Trump has suggested several times to senior national security officials that they look into the use of nuclear bombs to prevent hurricanes from reaching the United States, Axios reported on Sunday.
A source who was at a White House briefing said Trump asked why a bomb can’t be dropped inside the eye of the hurricane to disrupt it as it heads across the Atlantic from Africa.
The briefer "was knocked back on his heels," the source said, adding that "People were astonished.”
Other sources said National Security Councils memos recorded other instances in which Trump has made similar suggestions,
The sources said the president’s ideas, which he suggested early in his term, were never transformed into a formal policy process.
In response, a senior administration official said, "We don't comment on private discussions that the president may or may not have had with his national security team."
Another official defended Trump's idea and said people near him said they love a president who is willing to ask tough questions, adding that “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."
The idea has occasionally been raised over the years, even though scientists agree it won't work. To counter the notion that it is feasible, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has even published an online fact sheet.
“Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems,” the fact sheet said.
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