August 26, 2019 09:35 AM UTC

A Few Words About Nuking Hurricanes

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• by: Colorado Pols

CBS News updates this weekend’s wacky Donald Trump news you’ve probably already heard, the President’s reported interest in exploding nuclear weapons inside hurricanes to break them up–now disputed as “fake news” by Trump:

While dealing with an economic storm of his own while overseas at the G-7 summit, President Trump is disputing a report that he suggested dropping nuclear weapons into the eye of hurricanes in an attempt to weaken their contact. Axios reported over the weekend that Mr. Trump has suggested multiple times to senior Homeland Security and national security officials that they explore using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States, citing sources who have heard the president’s private remarks.

Mr. Trump reportedly pushed the idea during a hurricane briefing at the White House, much to the briefer’s shock. Axios reports that the president also raised the idea in a conversation with NSC officials before current national security adviser John Bolton took over.

But after the story broke, the president called it “ridiculous.” “The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous. I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!” Mr. Trump said on Twitter.

But the Axios reporter who wrote the story stands by it:

I stand by every word in the story. He said this in at least two meetings during the first year and a bit of the presidency, and one of the conversations was memorialized. https://t.co/5qs8o1k4QS

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) August 26, 2019

The idea of dropping nukes on a hurricane is of course so bad that even Fox News was obliged to consult experts, who promptly explained to their impressionable pro-Trump viewers that yes, dropping nukes on a hurricane is bad:

“Detonating a nuclear bomb inside a hurricane would do nothing to disrupt the storm,” tweeted climate analyst and meteorologist Ryan Maue Sunday. “Instead, you now have a radioactive hurricane.” [Pols emphasis]

In all fairness, though, dropping nukes on hurricanes did not actually originate first-person in the mind of President Trump, but was one of a bevy of suggested “peaceful uses” of nuclear weapons known as the Plowshare or “Atoms for Peace” program. Another such idea that actually made it to the testing phase was Project Rulison, a 1969 nuclear explosion near Rifle intended to demonstrate the ability of nuclear blasts to liberate natural gas from shale. While the 40-kiloton blast did indeed frack the hell out of the targeted shale, unfortunately the resulting gas was (wait for it) radioactive and commercially useless.

To summarize, yes it’s crazy to try to drop nuclear bombs on hurricanes, and it’s not impossible or even implausible Trump thought it might be cool to try.

And yes, that’s scary as hell.