President Donald Trump in his first phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads, according to a report.
Trump told Putin that the treaty, known as New START, was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, according to a report by Reuters.
Unnamed sources said that Trump did not know what the treaty was, and had paused to ask his aides in an aside what it was, according to the report. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Thursday that Trump understood the topic, but had wanted an opinion from an aide.
“It wasn’t like he didn’t know what was being said. He wanted an opinion on something,” Spicer said.
The treaty requires Russia and the United States to lower the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 or less by 2018. It also limits deployed land- and submarine-based missiles, and nuclear-capable bombers.
In the phone call, Putin suggested extending New START, which is set to expire in 2021, the sources told Reuters.
Arms treaties are for fools, take a look at how many weapons banned by the Geneva conventions are still stockpiled.
We should have had a complete ABM system decades ago and weaponized satellites before the Chinese got into space. But sill assed pieces of papers signed by politicians prevented it.
“Unnamed sources said that Trump did not know what the treaty was, and had paused to ask his aides in an aside what it was,”
Nobody knew what that treaty was. It was not widely publicized at the time, probably because it was a really bad deal. In fact it was probably such a bad deal, State
tried to hide it from President Trump.
But if it makes you feel better, you just keep playing that “Trump is a Retard” song, lefties.
Perhaps it’s just me, but if 1,500 won’t get the job done, I don’t think another 50 will help.
Irate Mate, all of these nuke treaties are useless. What would have been useful is SDI. But now we have useless, bad deals with Russia and Iran, and muslim outreach at NASA. Well, maybe not the muslim outreach stuff anymore.
“unnamed sources” = Obama holdovers
I don’t know enough about Start Two to make a comment although I remember at the time there was a degree of criticism about it. What I would want to know if I were Trump is who is leaking this material and come down on them like a hammer.
Tracking down leakers is work for cyber security personnel.
Finding them won’t be hard as they won’t ever pass up a chance to snarkily disparage all that they hold in contempt.
Show them the door.
Deny them unemployment, and mark their file as: Not eligible for re-hire.
Heckle them on their way out
Why do we need enough warheads to melt the entire planet many times over?
If we can’t do want we do with 100 warheads then I say we are in an arms race for the sake of the military industrial complex.