Trump Camp Denies “Nuclear Weapons” Story

Of course they have. The Hill reports:

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign denied a report on Wednesday that the Republican presidential nominee had three times asked a foreign policy adviser why the U.S. could not use its vast nuclear arsenal. “There is no truth to this,” spokeswoman Hope Hicks told The Hill in an email, as the anecdote from MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough gained traction on the internet.

According to Scarborough, Trump thrice questioned a pillar of U.S. nuclear policy during an hour-long briefing with an unidentified foreign policy expert at some point in the last several months. “If we have them, why can’t we use them?” Trump asked, according to the “Morning Joe” host.

While Trump’s campaign is denying that he posed the questions during the briefing, his positions on nuclear policy have deviated from the mainstream on several counts.

For one, Trump has openly suggested that major powers such as Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia obtain nuclear weapons, in what experts say could lead to a dramatic proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Trump later appeared to walk the statement back, though his position has been hard to pin down.

Separately, the GOP nominee has refused to rule out using nuclear weapons in Europe or against extremists such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, something practically unheard of in modern American political rhetoric.