Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden railed against President Trump for seeming to lack “conception of what constitutes national security” in light of legendary journalist Bob Woodward writing in his forthcoming book “Rage” that Trump knew about the existence of a classified nuclear weapons system, during an interview aired on CNN Thursday.
In his book that drew from 18 interviews with Trump conducted from December to July, Woodward wrote that Trump privately expressed COVID-19 fears after being warned by national security officials in late January that COVID-19 would be the worst pandemic in a century. However, the President would go on to spend the following weeks downplaying the threat of COVID-19 as cases began to spread throughout the country.
According to the Washington Post, Woodward also wrote that Trump bragged about a supposedly secret nuclear weapons system while recounting how the U.S. came close to waging nuclear war with North Korea in 2017.
“I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about,” Trump told Woodward, according to the Post.
After saying that the remarks that Trump made to Woodward were “not a surprise,” Biden argued that the intelligence community has no reason to trust a president who lacks understanding of what constitutes national security.
“You wonder why people in the intelligence community wondered from the very beginning whether you could share data with him, ’cause they don’t trust him. They don’t trust what he’ll say or do,” Biden said. “He seems to have no conception of what constitutes national security, no conception of anything other than: what can he do to promote himself?”
The former VP then referenced an Axios report that said Trump pondered whether nuclear bombs could help dissipate hurricanes before landfall, which the President has denied.
Biden also cited Trump’s erroneous comment last year that the Continental Army “took over the airports” from the British in the Revolutionary War (airplanes had not existed during that time) — a claim that the President blamed on a supposedly a faulty teleprompter.
“This is the guy who said maybe the way to deal with hurricane is drop a nuclear bomb on them. I mean, seriously, he said it!” Biden said. “I mean, God. Or you know, the problem with the Revolutionary War was they didn’t have enough airports. I mean, I just — it is beyond my comprehension.”
The Democratic presidential nominee then took aim at the President’s disparaging remarks to fallen soldiers reported in The Atlantic last week — which include calling the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) a “fucking loser” in 2018 — by bringing up his late son Beau Biden’s service in Kosovo and in the Iraq war.
“And all the people with him, the people who died — they’re suckers? I mean, I can’t fathom,” Biden said. “They’re heroes. They really are heroes. Duty, honor, country.”
Biden went on to take aim about how Trump boasts about “can you repeat four words in a row or whatever his little IQ test or dementia test he took.”
“He doesn’t understand duty, honor, service, country. He doesn’t get it,” Biden said. “Or if he gets it, he doesn’t care about it.”
Biden concluded that regardless of his presidential run, Trump shouldn’t be the commander-in-chief of the military.
“It’s just — no commander-in-chief’s ever, ever, ever, acted like this man,” Biden said.
Watch Biden’s remarks below:
Joe Biden says people in the intelligence community do not trust President Trump because he "seems to have no conception of what constitutes national security. No conception of anything other than what can he do to promote himself” https://t.co/ny0U4iyOoU pic.twitter.com/XyRnf9DVuj
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 10, 2020
