'Reckless' Trump flirting with a nuclear crisis’ after being trolled: military expert

On Friday, President Donald Trump gave a stark warning to Russia that included the strategic positioning of nuclear submarines, a warning that former Naval College professor Tom Nichols, who now writes for The Atlantic, claims was merely a “convenient distraction” from the president’s “terrible week,” and one that could end up sparking a “nuclear crisis.”

On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump announced that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines in response to inflammatory comments from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. In a post on the social media platform Telegram, Medvedev taunted Trump while also referencing “Dead Hand,” the Soviet-built nuclear automated system that would ensure mutual destruction with any attacking countries.

The problem, Nichols writes, is that Medvedev is “a man with little actual power in Russia,” something Trump is likely aware of, and that the nuclear saber rattling is a blatant attempt to move on from what has been a rough news cycle for the president, one that could have catastrophic consequences.

“Trump knows that a foreign-policy crisis, and anything involving nuclear weapons, is an instant distraction from other news,” Nicoles wrote in an op-ed published in The Atlantic Friday. “The media will always zero in on such moments, because it is, in fact, news when the most powerful man on Earth starts talking about nuclear weapons. (And here I am, writing about it as well.)”

Trump has had an unusually poor string of stories pile up against him in recent weeks; his botched handling of files on Jeffrey Epstein, his tanking poll numbers and an abysmal job report that showed the slowest monthly job growth since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And while distractions are not an uncommon tactic for Trump to employ, Nicoles argues, the gravity of the president’s latest distraction have reached a new level.

“Trump has had a terrible week: he’s dug a deeper hole for himself on the Jeffrey Epstein issue, the economy is headed in the wrong direction, and his approval rating is cratering,” Nicoles wrote. “Using the implied threat of nuclear war to pick a fight with one of Red Square’s most juvenile and odious figures is a convenient distraction. Nuclear-missile submarines are not toys.”

You can read his piece here.