President Trump has suggested to senior advisers at least twice that the U.S. should drop a nuclear bomb into the eye of a hurricane to keep it from hitting the U.S., Axios reported.
According to a sources who heard him make the remarks and spoke to Axios, Trump first raised the bombastic idea during a hurricane briefing at the White House.
“I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” Trump said according to a source who was there. “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”
People in the room were “astonished” by Trump’s suggestion, according to the Axios source.
Trump also brought up bombing hurricanes during a conversation with a senior administration official. According to a source who was briefed on the memo from that meeting, Trump made a similar suggestion about bombing hurricanes to keep them from hitting the homeland.
Trump tweeted on Monday morning combatting the reporting, saying the notion that he suggested blowing up hurricanes was “ridiculous.”
Read the full Axios report here.
The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous. I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 26, 2019