Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Trump Wanted Tenfold Increase in Nuclear Arsenal, Surprising Military - NBC News

Trump Wanted Tenfold Increase in Nuclear Arsenal, Surprising Military
by COURTNEY KUBE, KRISTEN WELKER, CAROL E. LEE and SAVANNAH GUTHRIE
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he wanted what amounted to a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a gathering this past summer of the nation’s highest ranking national security leaders, according to three officials who were in the room.
Trump’s comments, the officials said, came in response to a briefing slide he was shown that charted the steady reduction of U.S. nuclear weapons since the late 1960s. Trump indicated he wanted a bigger stockpile, not the bottom position on that downward-sloping curve.
According to the officials present, Trump’s advisers, among them the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, were surprised. Officials briefly explained the legal and practical impediments to a nuclear buildup and how the current military posture is stronger than it was at the height of the build-up. In interviews, they told NBC News that no such expansion is planned.
The July 20 meeting was described as a lengthy and sometimes tense review of worldwide U.S. forces and operations. It was soon after the meeting broke up that officials who remained behind heard Tillerson say that Trump is a “moron.”
Revelations of Trump’s comments that day come as the U.S. is locked in a high-stakes standoff with North Korea over its nuclear ambitions and is poised to set off a fresh confrontation with Iran by not certifying to Congress that Tehran is in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
Trump convened a meeting Tuesday with his national security team in which they discussed “a range of options to respond to any form of North Korean aggression or, if necessary, to prevent North Korea from threatening the U.S. and its allies with nuclear weapons,” according to the White House.
The president’s comments during the Pentagon meeting in July came in response to a chart shown during the meeting on the history of the U.S. and Russia’s nuclear capabilities that showed America’s stockpile at its peak in the late 1960s, the officials said. Some officials present said they did not take Trump’s desire for more nuclear weapons to be literally instructing the military to increase the actual numbers. But his comments raised questions about his familiarity with the nuclear posture and other issues, officials said.
Two officials present said that at multiple points in the discussion, the president expressed a desire not just for more nuclear weapons, but for additional U.S. troops and military equipment.
Any increase in America’s nuclear arsenal would not only break with decades of U.S. nuclear doctrine but also violate international disarmament treaties signed by every president since Ronald Reagan. Nonproliferation experts warned that such a move could set off a global arms race.
In this file photo taken June 25, 2014, an inert Minuteman 3 missile is seen in a training launch tube at Minot Air Force Base, N.D. Charlie Riedel / AP file
“If he were to increase the numbers, the Russians would match him, and the Chinese” would ramp up their nuclear ambitions, Joe Cirincione, a nuclear expert and MSNBC contributor, said, referring to the president.
“There hasn’t been a military mission that’s required a nuclear weapon in 71 years,” Cirincione said.
Details of the July 20 meeting, which have not been previously reported, shed additional light on tensions among the commander-in-chief, members of his Cabinet and the uniformed leadership of the Pentagon stemming from vastly different world views, experiences and knowledge bases.
Moreover, the president’s comments reveal that Trump, who suggested before his inauguration that the U.S. “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability,” voiced that desire as commander-in-chief directly to the military leadership in the heart of the Pentagon this summer.
Some officials in the Pentagon meeting were rattled by the president’s desire for more nuclear weapons and his understanding of other national security issues from the Korean peninsula to Iraq and Afghanistan, the officials said.
That meeting followed one held a day earlier in the White House Situation Room focused on Afghanistan in which the president stunned some of his national security team. At that July 19 meeting, according to senior administration officials, Trump asked military leaders to fire the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and compared their advice to that of a New York restaurant consultant whose poor judgment cost a business valuable time and money.
Two people familiar with the discussion said the Situation Room meeting, in which the president’s advisers anticipated he would sign off on a new Afghanistan strategy, was so unproductive that the advisers decided to continue the discussion at the Pentagon the next day in a smaller setting where the president could perhaps be more focused. “It wasn’t just the number of people. It was the idea of focus,” according to one person familiar with the discussion. The thinking was: “Maybe we need to slow down a little and explain the whole world” from a big-picture perspective, this person said.
The Pentagon meeting was also attended by Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph Dunford, Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva, Undersecretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, Stephen Bannon, who served then as Trump’s chief strategist, Jared Kushner who is a senior adviser to the president and Reince Preibus who was then chief of staff. Sean Spicer who was then White House spokesman, and Keith Schiller who was Director of Oval Office Operations at the time, also accompanied Trump to the Pentagon that day.
Asked for a response to the president’s comments, a White House official speaking only on the condition of anonymity, said that the nuclear arsenal was not a primary topic of the briefing. Dana White, spokesperson for the Pentagon said “the Secretary of Defense has many closed sessions with the president and his cabinet members. Those conversations are privileged.”
At the time of the meeting, White told reporters the meeting “covered the planet,” and that the president’s advisers “went around the world,” outlining what she described as the challenges and opportunities for the U.S.
Two senior administration officials said the president’s advisers outlined the reasons an expansion of America’s nuclear arsenal is not feasible. They pointed to treaty obligations and budget restraints and noted to him that today’s total conventional and nonconventional military arsenal leaves the U.S. in a stronger defense posture than it was when the nuclear arsenal alone was larger.
Still, officials said they are working to address the president’s concerns within the Nuclear Posture Review, which is expected to be finalized by the end of 2017 or early next year. “He’s all in for modernization,” one official said. “His concerns are the U.S. stopped investing in this.”
Officials present said that Trump’s comments on a significantly increased arsenal came in response to a briefing slide that outlined America’s nuclear stockpile over the past 70 years. The president referenced the highest number on the chart — about 32,000 in the late 1960s — and told his team he wanted the U.S. to have that many now, officials said.
The U.S. currently has around 4,000 nuclear warheads in its military stockpile, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The Pentagon is currently undergoing the long-planned posture review. Modernizing the arsenal is a step presidents continuously take that doesn’t put the U.S. in violation of treaty obligations, Cirincione said.
“You don’t get in trouble for modernizing. You do get in trouble if you do one of two things: if you increase the numbers. The strategic weapons are treaty limited. Two, if you build a new type of weapon that is prohibited by a treaty,” he said.
It’s unclear which portion of the Pentagon briefing prompted Tillerson to call the president a “moron” after the meeting broke up and some advisers were gathered around. Officials who attended the two-hour session said it included a number of tense exchanges.
At one point, Trump responded to a presentation on the U.S. military presence in South Korea by asking why South Koreans aren’t more appreciative and welcoming of American defense aid. The comment prompted intervention from a senior military official in the room to explain the overall relationship and why such help is ultimately beneficial to U.S. national security interests.
Trump has been inconsistent with regards to his stance on nuclear weapons.
At one of the earliest Republican debates, in December of 2015, then-candidate Trump seemed to stumble through a question about the nuclear triad, the land, air, and sea-based systems present in a traditional nuclear arsenal.
Asked three months later about U.S. policy on nonproliferation, Trump said on CNN: "Maybe it’s going to have to be time to change, because so many people, you have Pakistan has it, you have China has it.”
When pressed, he allowed, "I don’t want more nuclear weapons.”
But his suggestion that the world could see an increase in nuclear weapons after decades of post-Cold War reductions rattled America’s allies and drew criticism from foreign policy experts and U.S. officials at the time.
The president left the Pentagon on July 20, telling reporters the meeting was “absolutely great.

North Korea crisis in 300 words - BBC News

North Korea crisis in 300 words
22 September 2017
From the section Asia Share this with Facebook Share this with Twitter Share this with Messenger Share this with Email Share
Image from North Korean media of four missile launches on 7 March 2017Image copyrightREUTERS
The North Korean stand-off is a crisis that, at worst, threatens nuclear war, but it's complicated. Let's take a step back.
Why does North Korea want nuclear weapons?
The Korean peninsula was divided after World War Two and the communist North developed into a Stalinesque dictatorship.
Almost entirely isolated on the global stage, its leaders say nuclear capabilities are its only deterrent against an outside world seeking to destroy it.
How close are they?
North Korea claims it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb - many times more powerful than an atomic bomb - that can be miniaturised and loaded on a long-range missile.
State media called the test "a perfect success", and although analysts said the claims should be treated with caution, leaked information suggests US intelligence officials do believe North Korea is capable of miniaturisation.
Pyongyang views the US as its main adversary but also has rockets aimed at South Korea and Japan, where thousands of US troops are based.
What has been done to stop them?
Attempts to negotiate aid-for-disarmament deals have repeatedly failed.
The UN has implemented increasingly tough sanctions - to little effect. China, the North's only real ally, has also put economic and diplomatic pressure on the North.
The US has now threatened military force.
Is it for real this time?
The crisis has been brewing for years, but is at a new level now.
The US is within reach of a strike now, which coupled with the miniaturisation is a game changer. And over the summer, North Korea has grown increasingly provocative, threatening the US Pacific territory of Guam and Japan.
The US responded to the latest test by saying its patience is "not unlimited" and it was ready to respond militarily.
Never has the rhetoric exchanged been more incendiary and personal, and experts are increasingly alarmed.

After Bob Corker Blasts Trump, GOP Mostly Shrugs - NBC News


OCT 10 2017, 8:30 AM ET
After Bob Corker Blasts Trump, GOP Mostly Shrugs
by CHUCK TODD, MARK MURRAY and CARRIE DANN
First Read is your briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.
After Corker blasts Trump, GOP mostly shrugs
WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that his party’s president could set the nation “on the path to World War III,” and the reaction yesterday was either silence or a shrug from the GOP.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell commented Monday from Kentucky, where he said: "Sen. [Bob] Corker is a valued member of the Republican conference in the Senate and a key player on the budget. We're going to be turning to the budget next week, and he'll be a big help in helping us get it passed."
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, added that both Corker and President Trump “ought to cool it,” per NBC’s Marianna Sotomayor.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., responded: “You’ll have to ask Sen. Corker what led him to make that statement. I haven’t made that statement,” per the AP.
Retiring Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily” yesterday: "I am glad that Sen. Corker has brought voice to this. My Republican colleagues ... are concerned by much of the dysfunction and disorder and chaos at the White House... I think more of my colleagues should speak up."
And Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said of Corker: "It's easy to be bold when you're not coming back."
That was pretty much it, and that relative silence or relative ambivalence from Congress speaks volumes. As NBC’s Capitol Hill team has reminded us, the House of Representatives returns to work today — so we could get more reaction — while the Senate is out all week.
Meanwhile, the most forceful defense of Trump came from Vice President Mike Pence — and that was equally telling. "President Trump is achieving real results on the international stage,” the vice president said in a statement. “While critics engage in empty rhetoric and baseless attacks, under the President's leadership, ISIS is on the run; North Korea is isolated like never before; and our NATO allies are doing more to pay their fair share for our common defense.”
Charlie Cook: GOP divisions reduce the odds of party retaining its majority in 2018
Trump vs. Corker isn’t the only thing dividing Republicans right now. As NBC’s Kristen Welker reported on Sunday, former White House strategist Steve Bannon is planning to launch a "full-on assault on the Republican establishment." Bloomberg News has more: “Bannon plans to support as many as 15 Republican Senate candidates in 2018, including several challengers to incumbents, the people said. He’ll support only candidates who agree to two conditions: They will vote against McConnell as majority leader, and they will vote to end senators’ ability to block legislation by filibustering.”
Political observer Charlie Cook writes that this Republican-on-Republican conflict isn’t going to help the GOP in the midterms. “The party needs to sublimate its divisions, get mainstream Republicans to the polls, and persuade the Trump base to cast ballot for non-Trump Republicans. That’s a tall order. And it’s why last week’s news reduced the odds of the GOP retaining its majority from a good bet to even money.”
Trump on Tillerson: “I guess we’ll have to compare IQ tests”
Talk about a potentially awkward lunch. At 12:30 pm ET, President Trump has lunch with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — who referred to the president as a “moron,” per NBC News — as well as with Defense Secretary James Mattis.
Trump responded to the “moron” description in an interview with Forbes: "I think it's fake news, but if he did that, I guess we'll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win."
NBC News stands behind its reporting.
Feinstein’s running for Senate re-election, and California’s top-two primary system makes it easier for her to hold onto her seat
NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald: “Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., announced Monday she will run for re-election in 2018, setting the stage for a potential Democratic battle in the heartland of progressivism.”
“Feinstein, 84, said in a Facebook post that while she's ‘immensely proud of my service,’ there is more she wants to do ‘from ending gun violence, to combating climate change, to ensuring proper and affordable access to healthcare, and to giving DREAMers the chance to stay in the United States.’”
While Feinstein could be vulnerable to a primary challenge in liberal California, remember that the state has a top-two primary system — meaning that the two primary candidates with the most votes, regardless of party, head to the general election.
So say a Bernie Sanders-like candidate challenges Feinstein from the left: It’s possible that this challenger might not even make the runoff (because a Republican could get more votes in the primary). And even if this challenger makes the top two, Feinstein could win by consolidating the GOP/indie vote. Bottom line: It would be very hard to beat Feinstein from the left.
Gillespie, Northam clash in final debate — but not over Trump
President Trump was barely a factor in the final Virginia governor debate, which took place in Trump-friendly Southwest Virginia. So Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam fought over other issues, the AP writes.
“A sharper tone emerged when Gillespie said that, as lieutenant governor, Northam has been a member of the Center for Rural Virginia board for years but hasn’t shown up to a single meeting. ‘He did not show up,’ Gillespie said. ‘I will make it a priority.’”
“Seizing a chance to contrast his personal bio with Gillespie’s, Northam said he had ‘showed up for this country’ by serving in the U.S. Army, treating wounded soldiers during Desert Storm and serving in the Virginia Senate. ‘While I’ve been showing up and serving the commonwealth of Virginia, you’ve been a K Street lobbyist in Washington,’ Northam said. ‘So the only time you have showed is when you get paid.’”
“Gillespie said he ‘did show up’ for the clients of his former company, once considered one of the top bipartisan lobbying and media firms in Washington, emphasizing that he was ‘effective on their behalf.’”

President Trump's Friends Are Telling Him to Fight Robert Mueller's Russia Probe - TIME

President Trump's Friends Are Telling Him to Fight Robert Mueller's Russia Probe
Tom Lobianco & Eric Tucker / AP
Oct 10, 2017
(WASHINGTON) — Even as President Donald Trump's advisers encourage him to accept the realities of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, longtime friends and allies are pushing Trump to fight back, citing concerns that his lawyers are naive to the existential threat facing the president.
Trump supporters and associates inside and outside the White House see the conciliatory path as risky to the maverick president's tenure. Instead, they want the street-fighting tweeter to criticize Mueller with abandon.
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The struggle between supporters of the legal team's steady, cooperative approach, and the band of Trump loyalists who yearn for a fight, comes as the Mueller probe begins lapping at the door of the Oval Office. Mueller, who is investigating the firing of former FBI director James Comey and other key actions of the Trump administration, has signaled that his team intends to interview multiple current and former White House officials in the coming weeks and has requested large batches of documents from the executive branch.
In private, Trump remains relatively calm for now, but that doesn't mean he thinks the Russia probe is legitimate, and he could return to fighting Mueller at any moment, according to a group of about 15 Trump allies, advisers and former campaign aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about private conversations with the White House.
The president still periodically flashes his anger, blasting the Senate intelligence committee's investigation in a tweet last Thursday and urging them to investigate journalists instead of his campaign and family. And in a private dinner with social conservatives last month, Trump expressed frustration over Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recusal, which helped pave the road to Mueller's appointment.

"The president respects what Bob Mueller is doing and has fully cooperated and asked everyone around him to fully cooperate with Bob," said Trump's attorney, John Dowd. "And as a result," he added, there has been for months "a very productive, professional relationship."
Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer responsible for responding to Mueller's information requests, said it's important to Trump "and the country to get this behind us."
"The White House is working diligently in full cooperation with the special counsel to complete the responses to all pending requests, and the president's frustration does not extend to the special counsel personally in any way," he added.
Lawyers have been gathering documents requested by Mueller's investigators — which include records about the brief tenure of ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn — and working to schedule interviews with aides. In recent weeks, they've also discussed a legal defense fund that could cover the cost of lower-level White House officials who may get wrapped up in the probe, and about the possibility of a single "pool counsel" to represent some aides.
But the question of cooperation is far from settled for Trump's allies, many of whom are pressing him to fight Mueller more aggressively.
That tension was apparent at a private dinner of close to a dozen conservative leaders with Trump and his top aides on Sept. 25, though accounts of the gathering vary.
In one version, one guest peppered Trump with questions about what he was going to do about the special counsel's investigation. While Trump was dismissive, the president said he was keeping his head low and such questions should be posed to Sessions himself, according to two people who were present and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private dinner.
But a third person in the room said that Trump was visibly angry with Sessions and made a flippant remark about the attorney general's decision to recuse himself from overseeing the federal Russia probe.
One former Trump campaign aide in contact with the president said Trump's feelings about Sessions have evolved in the last few months. Trump believes Sessions hurt him by not disclosing his interactions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the vetting process for attorney general.
Sessions should have been upfront with Trump and alerted him to those encounters rather than waiting for word of them to become public, the former campaign aide said. But the president's anger with Sessions also has diminished greatly in recent months, the same aide noted.
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Supporters of Trump's legal team and the discipline imposed by Chief of Staff John Kelly are hoping that Trump will remain even-keeled and not jeopardize himself with public outbursts. They consider Mueller's appointment the product of the most serious of self-inflicted wounds — Trump's firing of Comey — but are confident Trump will survive the investigation.
The president, the White House staff and others are "relieved" to have some structure inside the White House after months of chaos growing from the combative approach, said one White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks inside the White House.
But others, including many who worked closely with Trump on his successful election campaign, don't trust Mueller and believe White House lawyers are foolhardy to cooperate when the president is at risk.
The president and his team need to understand that this is a "political brawl" — not just a legal fight — and take that fight to Mueller, said the former campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions with the president and his team.
Trump will remain under control, one associate noted, as long as Mueller remains focused on Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, both of whom are under investigation. If the federal probe turns back toward the Trump family and business empire, then Trump may try to fire Mueller, the associate predicted.
The lay-low strategy is a departure in style for a president accustomed to rhetorical bombast. But after a period several months ago in which his advocates discussed ways to undercut the credibility of Mueller's investigation, his attorneys now talk openly about their respect for Mueller and their desire for full cooperation.The anger inside and outside the White House stems from almost everyone in the president's orbit seeing the allegations of collusion as a "nothing burger." But, with the reality of the investigations, it's a "nothing burger" they're now acknowledging they have to deal with.