Donald Trump has made some very scary statements about nuclear weapons

Donald Trump isn't afraid to speak his mind, even if it goes against popular opinion. When the former president of the United States began his presidential campaign in 2015, he made some pretty hilarious statements. However, there are six statements Trump has made over the years regarding nuclear weapons that are downright terrifying.

Throughout the entirety of his time in the political spotlight, the former president has said things about the use of nuclear weapons that should make anybody’s skin crawl. Here are ten terrifying things that Trump has said about nukes that should worry you. 

In 2016, Trump sat down with John Dickerson of Face the Nation and it was during that interview that the CBS host said that the United States hadn’t used a nuclear weapon since 1945 and asked the soon-to-be forty-fifth president: “When should it?”

Trump's response was short. But it surely raised a few eyebrows. “Well, it is an absolute last stance. And, you know, I use the word unpredictable. You want to be unpredictable,” he explained, yammering on about how a past business deal taught him that. 

Another highlight from 2016 was the time Trump said he’d be okay with Japan and Korea becoming nuclear powers after he was asked about it by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. 

“I am prepared to—if they’re not going to take care of us properly, we cannot afford to be the military and the police for the world. We are, right now, the police for the entire world. We are policing the entire world,” Trump said—clashing with prior statements. 

You see, at the beginning of his first campaign, Trump was a staunch supporter of what is usually called nuclear non-proliferation by the political class, saying several times that he did not wish to see more nations gain the terrible power of nuclear weapons. 

“The biggest problem we have is nuclear—nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon… that is the single biggest problem,” Trump said in December 2015 Republican Presidential Debates. 

Trump himself might have turned into that madman, or at least some people might have thought, when he causally suggested he would not take using a nuclear bomb against Europe in a disastrous March 2016 phone interview on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. 

"Europe is a big place. I’m not going to take cards off the table…We have to negotiate. There will be times maybe when we’re going to be in a very deep, very difficult, very horrible negotiation,” Trump said as he meandered his way through his explanation. 

In the heat of a spat with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un in 2017, President Trump used his Twitter presence to levy the startling threat that he was ready to press America’s nuclear button, which he said was much bigger and better in typical Trumpian fashion. 

“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” Trump said in a message that should’ve even scared supporters. 

In 2019, Trump reportedly suggested that the U.S. military could drop a nuclear bomb on forming hurricanes to prevent them from being able to make landfall… seriously, the best Hollywood writers wouldn’t have even been able to make this terrifying one up. 

According to one security official present that Axios spoke with who was in a meeting with the president, he said: “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” Probably not realizing that the force of a trillion splitting atoms would do little to halt the hurricane…

“They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can't we do that?" The President of the United States said at the time to the officials surrounding him…

In 2022, well after he left office, the former president told Fox Business that he would just threaten to nuclear Russia if in a hypothetical negotiation over Ukraine with Vladimir Putin. Well, it's a little more complicated than that and Trump explained his position perfectly. 

According to Trump, Putin was fond of throwing around the “nuclear word” while talking or negotiating, so he came up with a clever solution to get the Russian President to stop threatening nuclear war if fighting about Ukraine, threatening it right back at him.

“You should say, ‘Look, if you mention that word one more time, we’re going to send them over and we’ll be coasting back and forth, up and down your coast. You can’t let this tragedy continue,” Trump said according to a report from The Guardian.

The former president has said many more things about nuclear weapons that could curl your toes but these six from the entire period of his public political life should be enough to give you pause if you were even considering voting for the man again.