Make America Radioactive Again? Yes, if Trump has his way [View all]

Make America Radioactive Again? Yes, if Trump has his way
Trump's order to resume nuclear weapons testing "immediately" should worry us all

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published November 2, 2025 9:00AM (EST)


(Salon) The next time they have the opportunity, one of the right-wing influencers who now dominate the White House press corps should ask President Donald Trump if he happened to watch “House Full of Dynamite,” Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, when he was traveling this week. It’s a chilling movie about a nuclear strike on the United States, and since he seems to be suddenly concerned about America’s nuclear arsenal for no apparent reason, it would be fair to ask if the film was behind his startling announcement on his way back from Asia that he was ordering the immediate resumption of nuclear testing after a three decade moratorium.

Don’t laugh. It’s as plausible an explanation for his confusing order as anything else, because his stated reason — that other countries are testing their nuclear weapons — is simply not true. The only country to hold such tests in recent times is North Korea, where Kim Jong Un continued to evaluate his nuclear capability, despite all the happy talk and “love letters” between Trump and his good buddy. None of the nuclear powers have tested any weapons since the 1990s.

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As with so many other issues, Trump’s beliefs were formed when he was a young man, and they appear to be based on a very shallow understanding of the subject. In November 1984, at the behest of his mentor Roy Cohn and just after Ronald Reagan’s reelection as president, Trump gave an interview to the Washington Post declaring his desire to negotiate an arms agreement with the Soviet Union. But importantly, he withheld specific plans because he didn’t want to tip his hand:



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Eight years later, the problem is that there’s no one around to school him anymore. Many of the people in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon are war-mongers who believe that nuclear weapons should be on the table. The current Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge A. Colby, conceived a new strategic posture during Trump’s first term that recommended a much looser nuclear policy — including their use in response to a cyber attack. ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/11/02/make-america-radioactive-again-yes-if-trump-has-his-way/