Adam Smith: Trump’s nuclear strategy should not be based on a ‘bigger and more powerful’ button

Published January 24, 2018 3:54pm ET



The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee said Wednesday that the Trump administration would be wrong to base its new nuclear weapons strategy on the president’s recent Twitter boast of having a “bigger and more powerful” nuclear launch button.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said a move by the administration to expand the nuclear arsenal would feed an international arms race, increase the possibility of nuclear war, and add unknown cost to the “completely unrealistic” $1.2 trillion price tag for modernizing existing weapons.

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