National security lawyers alarmed by Fox News town hall: Did Trump just "disclose classified info?"

[limbicnuminousity]

Source: Salon

Former President Donald Trump’s remarks about nuclear weapons during a Fox News town hall on Wednesday raised alarm from national security attorneys.

Asked by Fox News host Laura Ingraham about fans who worry about his “safety,” Trump said, “I worry about their safety too.”

“These people, everybody in this room is in great danger right now,” he said. “We have a nuclear weapon that if you hit New York, South Carolina is going to be gone too. I worry about their safety. I think it’s the reason I’m doing this.”

-snip-

“Is Trump out there spilling the details on our nuclear weapons and the destructive range of those weapons in the midst of a Fox interview? Is it me or is he doing that?” asked national security lawyer Bradley Moss, questioning the media silence on “the former president potentially revealing classified information about our nuclear weapons arsenal on live TV.”

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2024/02/22/national-security-lawyers-alarmed-by-fox-news-town-hall-did-just-disclose-classified-info/

[BootinUp]

1. It's only February. We have a long way

To go yet.

[MontanaMama]

2. Why wouldn't he disclose classified info?

He's done it before, still hasn't paid for those crimes, so....

[Silent Type]

3. That doesn't sound particularly useful to anyone.

[onetexan]

33. Agree. Sounds incoherent.

[intrepidity]

4. A really weird way to refer to *our* weapons

As though US weapons would be deployed on US? If he wanted to refer to enemy weapons, why not say so? Or, was he using the royal/collective "We" to mean all of humanity?

[Native]

9. Or could it be that he's so fucking dumb that this

was the only way our military could get him to understand the capabilities of these weapons? They probably showed him a map, and he asked what state that was to the south at the bottom of the circle.

[intrepidity]

10. Lol, you're probably right

down to the last detail.

[xocetaceans]

17. If they showed him a map, he might have altered it with a Sharpie and internalized his own "estimation" of the blast...

...just like he altered that NWS/NOAA map of that hurricane forecast.

[OAITW r.2.0]

36. Having an unhinged conversation with your fans using no verifiable facts is even better!

Sharpies not wanted!

[JoseBalow]

13. He's on Team Putin

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. He's now dreaming of nuking New York so he doesn't have to pay

but it'd take out a state that voted for him, so he's in 2 minds (well, 2 quarter-minds).

[unblock]

27. There we go. He probably asked if we can just nuke New York,

And then they told him no, it would affect the entire northeast.

Then he said f the entire northeast.

Then they said yeah, well, it would affect places to the south, like South Carolina as well.

Then he said oh, guess we can't do that then.

[thomski64]

25. ...or by our weapons..

...he means Russia..

[woodsprite]

26. I was thinking just that. He meant he and Putie's nukes. nt

[EarthFirst]

5. This one's a freebie?

[OAITW r.2.0]

6. I sincerely doubt we have a single weapon that Would be of such a magnitude.

Most likely, he's bullshitting.

[Mr.Bill]

8. I agree.

Why would he pick now to tell the truth for the first time in his life?

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. Even a 100 MT nuke would not reach Trenton, NJ

Nukemap only goes up to 100 MT. There's really no point in trying to scale up from that.

In the early 1950s, Edward Teller proposed a 10,000 MT device and in the 1970s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory did some simulations for a 5 ,200 MT device. For obvious reasons, nothing larger than the Soviet "Tsar Bomba" (57 MT) was ever assembled.

https://bigthink.com/the-future/more-powerful-nuclear-bomb/

I think it's another case of Trump half listening to something he knew nothing about - which is pretty much everything - and spewing it out to try and impress an audience of know-even-less-than-nothings.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

40. Someone may have been trying to explain 'MIRV' to traitortrump.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle

Donny Dipshit could only imagine a single mushroom, so it had to be a really, really, hugely one to cover all that area.

[Wonder Why]

18. There is no doubt. We do not have any weapons of that magnitude.

[LudwigPastorius]

35. He is absolutely bullshitting.

A hypothetical 50,000 megaton bomb (more or less 1,000 times the power of the largest nuke ever detonated) would only destroy everything in a radius of 100 miles or so. That's a lot, but not anywhere near the 1,500 miles from NYC to Charleston.

Even a 5,000 megaton bomb, if it could even be built, would be about as big as the space shuttle's external liquid fuel tank. Good luck delivering it.

[Crowman2009]

7. Well he's rich & white, so FAUX just shrugs its shoulders.

Whereas with everyone else, it's calls for execution.

[IronLionZion]

11. He's probably spewing BS as usual

After US tested Castle Bravo at 15 megatons and Soviets tested Tsar Bomba at 58 megatons, both countries decided lots of smaller nukes were better than one superbomb. So no, I don't believe anyone has a superbomb with a blast radius like what Trump is describing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba#Test

[Mawspam2]

14. This from the guy who used a sharpie...

...to make a hurricane hit Alabama.

[Kid Berwyn]

16. Sounds like the Big Kabloona

Matter and Anti-Matter.

Imagine what humans could do if we weren't so busy killing each other off over land or gold or oil or such?

I bet we could change the world for the better, even.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. tRump is known for exaggeration. . . . . nt

[republianmushroom]

20. Huh, imagine that, trump disclosing secrets.

37 months and counting

[progressoid]

21. He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.

Trump just spews shit out of his gob.

[4lbs]

22. He's really close to giving Jack Smith the legal equivalent of a loaded weapon

to use on him, if he hasn't already done such.


Blabbering Donald Trump Hands Jack Smith a Key Piece of Evidence

Trump said something he probably shouldn’t have in that Fox News town hall.

https://newrepublic.com/post/179170/trump-jack-smith-evidence-classified-documents


Donald Trump must really believe he’s above the law, because he continues to essentially admit to wrongdoing in the classified documents lawsuit against him.

Special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump in June for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. During a Fox News town hall on Tuesday night, host Laura Ingraham asked Trump why he hadn’t simply returned the material when the government asked him to do so.

[OAITW r.2.0]

23. While the actual is probably BS; the theoretical might be what he's blabbing.

No doubt they know how to build a bigger bomb, but that doesn't mean they have actually built one.

[4lbs]

29. Yeah. I think he said something on the order of having the capability of exploding

a nuclear weapon in NYC and it affecting people in South Carolina.

I doubt such a weapon really exists, except in theoretical mathematical terms, as dreamt by the DOE.

Maybe if one exploded an ICBM with say, two dozen warheads, all on NYC, that might happen in the extract. Practically though, it is very, very, unlikely.

It reminds me of people saying if say, L.A. was to get hit with a 6.0 earthquake, the effects could be felt hundreds of miles away.

Umm... yeah, doesn't mean that the 6.0 travels all that way. By the time people hundreds of miles away feel it, it will usually be down to a 2.0. They were "affected", but not anywhere nearly as much as those at the epicenter.

However, mention "nuclear" and it is a trigger word for many people. Especially the scared ones that seem to make up most of his base.

[maxrandb]

24. There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom

My GOD!!! I am so sick of the fucking stupid. Never in my wildest fucking dreams did I imagine this Asspickle talking about nuclear weapons, unless he was trying to scam idiots by selling T***p bombs.

That he's treated with any amount of seriousness ought to knock the earth off it's axis and suck us all into a black hole of stupidness. Like a bottom-feeding vortex of stupid

Did someone steal his Pelodium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator?

?feature=shared

[Justice matters.]

31. Either this or he's deliberately making fun of all the idiots (he hates)...

who believe his abject BS. His criminal mind is THAT fucked up.

[C_U_L8R]

28. An explosion that big would kill the world.

With the sun blocked out, you'd either freeze or starve no matter where you lived.

[mn9driver]

30. Complete and utter bullshit.

Cheeto is just lying the way he does 90% of the time. What’s left of his brain is thinking about New York and South Carolina, so he improvises a lie to make himself feel better. This one has the added benefit of providing some fear for his fans to wallow in. They like that.

The other 10% of the time? He’s still lying, but in a more calculated and rehearsed way. Every single word that leaves his lips is a lie of one sort or another.

[OAITW r.2.0]

37. Concisely stated.

[Martin68]

32. I doubt that information has not been published. The thing is, Dump can't distinguish between the zone of

physical destruction and radiation fallout. There is no nuclear weapon that can take out an area that large due to heat and the shock wave.

[Farmer-Rick]

38. Exactly, he's referring to fall out

But he doesn't know the difference because he's an absolute idiot.

But still, he should quit flapping his lips about nuclear weapons.

[Stuart G]

34. Trump opens his mouth too much,...& he just proved it to all: everyone, anyone, stupid ones smart ones & inbetween ones.

Can't Donald Trump shut the ***k up?.....................................................................

.................................................THE ANSWER IS A TOTAL ...NO!.....................................................................................

[Firestorm49]

39. Just my two bit opinion, but I wouldn't give much credibility to what he said, as he talks out of his ass most

of the time. We now have weaponry multiple times more destructive than the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That the reach of radiation is extensive is a given. The bird brain hasn’t said anything that we already fear in the backs of our minds.

Solution - JAIL HIM FOR THE NEXT 20 YEARS. He’s a menace to society. (I’m being kind because my preferred remedy can’t be said without being investigated by some three initial entity.)

[JHB]

41. Not that he hasn't spilled secrets, but my money is on...

...him just blathering on about something he doesn't understand at all. Again.

Not even deliberate bullshitting, just talking to limit of his extremely limited understanding of anything that does not involve screwing someone over or getting his rocks off. When he tries to wrap his mind around anything else, it's a 1-inch belt trying to cover a 60-inch waistline.