Would you, you were just talking about the nuclear world we live in, and you\u2019ve said many times, and I\u2019ve heard you say it throughout the campaign, that you want the US to be more unpredictable. Would you be willing to have the US be the first to use nuclear weapons in a confrontation with adversaries?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
An absolute last step. I think it\u2019s the biggest, I personally think it\u2019s the biggest problem the world has, nuclear capability. I think it\u2019s the single biggest problem. When people talk global warming, I say the global warming that we have to be careful of is the nuclear global warming. Single biggest that the world has. Power of weaponry today is beyond anything ever thought of, or even, you know, it\u2019s unthinkable, the power. You look at Hiroshima and you can multiply that times many, many times, is what you have today. And to me it\u2019s the single biggest, it\u2019s the single biggest problem.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The discussion inevitably turns to the nuclear deal with Iran\u2014a special b\u00eate noire of Trump\u2019s. In the exchanges here he reveals that he does not know some of the basic facts. He makes his often repeated remark that we \u201cgave\u201d the Iranians $150 billion. He surely knows that we \u201cgave back\u201d $150 billion of confiscated funds. This makes less convincing campaign rhetoric. But he adds, \u201cThey are, they are now rich, and did you notice they\u2019re buying from everybody but the United States? They\u2019re buying planes, they\u2019re buying everything, they\u2019re buying from everybody but the United States. I would never have made the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
To which Sanger responds, \u201cOur law prevents us from selling to them, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump replies, \u201cUh, excuse me?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanger answers, \u201cOur law prevents us from selling any planes or, we still have sanctions in the US which would prevent the US from being able to sell that equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump responds:<\/p>\n
So, how stupid is that? We give them the money, and we now say, \u201cGo buy Airbus instead of Boeing,\u201d right? So how stupid is that? In itself, what you just said, which is correct by the way, but would they now go and buy, you know, they bought 118 approximately, 118 Airbus planes. They didn\u2019t buy Boeing planes, OK? We give them the money, and we say you can\u2019t spend it in the United States, and create wealth and jobs in the United States. And on top of it, they didn\u2019t, they in theory, I guess, cannot do that, you know, based on what I\u2019ve understood. They can\u2019t do that. It\u2019s hard to believe. We gave them $150 billion and they can\u2019t spend it in our country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When discussing matters nuclear, Trump often resurrects the memory of his uncle John G. Trump, who was a professor at MIT<\/abbr>. Actually he was a professor of electrical engineering who worked on radar in World War II. There is no reason to believe he was an authority on nuclear weapons.<\/p>\nIf I ever get the chance to talk to Trump I will try to explain to him that this is not a business deal. (In the interviews he claimed that the Iranians were the number-one trading partners of the North Koreans and that this should have been included. The fact that it is the Chinese who are the number-one trading partners and that they were part of the talks seems to have escaped his attention.) The Iranians were months away from having enough fissile material to make weapons. While it is true that some of the provisions will be phased out, this does not mean that, when they are, a bomb will appear. There would be a substantial time before that could happen, and we would have the chance to consider our response. Meanwhile, I should note that the interview with Trump occurred just before the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, involving over fifty nations, without Russia, at the end of March.<\/p>\n
There is really only one bright spot and that is what happened in Iran. We have not been able to finalize the next stage of our disarmament agreement with the Russians. The North Koreans are surely going to test again. The Indians and Pakistanis are modernizing their arsenals. There is evidence that some Belgian terrorists had their sights on stealing nuclear material. And in the middle of this there is Trump, a colossus of ignorance.<\/p>\n