Read on Twitter
THREAD: Now would be a good time to revisit what senior military leaders have said on the record about how they would respond if Donald Trump were to order them to launch one or more nuclear weapons—which, to be clear, he can do at any time on his own authority.
At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on November 14, 2017, retired US Strategic Command commander Gen. Robert Kehler testified that if ordered to use nuclear weapons outside of the legally-vetted, pre-planned options available to the president, he would say ...
“I have a question about this … and I’m not ready to proceed.” Watch (starting at 49:05): https://www.c-span.org/video/?437317-1/concerns-raised-presidents-stability-nuclear-weapons-authority-hearing
Asked by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), “And then what happens?,” Kehler sheepishly and not very reassuringly replied, “Well, as I say, I don’t know, exactly. You know, no … fortunately we’ve never, these are all hypothetical scenarios.”
On November 18, 2017, at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada, USAF General John Hyten, commander of US STRATCOM (and now vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) said, “I provide advice to the president, he’ll tell me what to do.“
Hyten continued that if Trump illegally ordered him to use nuclear weapons, “I’m gonna say, ’Mr. President, that’s illegal.’ And guess what he’s gonna do? He’s gonna say, ‘What would be legal?’ ...”
”And we’ll come up with options, of a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is. And that’s the way it works. It’s not that complicated.”
