President Donald Trump Monday denied an Axios report that he pushed the idea of using nuclear bombs to disrupt hurricanes before they reach the United States, calling the story "ridiculous."
"The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous," he tweeted from the G-7 summit. "I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!"
According to the article, a source who was at a White House briefing said Trump had asked why a bomb can’t be dropped inside the eye of a hurricane to disrupt it as it heads across the Atlantic from Africa.
The president's ideas, suggested early in his term, were not made into a formal policy process, said Axios.
Senior administration officials said that the White House does not "comment on private discussions that the president may or may not have had with his national security team."
According to the Axios report, Trump raised the idea in two different conversations. A National Security Council memo from 2017 describes Trump asking if the administration should bomb hurricanes before they hit the United States. A source briefed on that memo said it doesn't use the word "nuclear," but instead says Trump asked about bombing hurricanes.
The idea of detonating a nuclear bomb over a hurricane is not an original one, notes Axios, as the plan was also floated by a government scientist during the Eisenhower era.
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Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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