Donald Trump had serious concerns about his national security advisers
and administration officials towards the beginning of his presidency
he believed China had a secret capability, even a powerful weapon, that caused massive man-made hurricanes and then launched them into the United States. stipulate?
He wanted to know whether that weapon would be considered an act of war by a foreign power
and could the United States respond militarily?
According to two former senior administration officials and a third person briefed on the situation, President Trump has repeatedly questioned the matter.
"It was so stupid for words," said a former Trump official familiar with the then-president's investigation. "I didn't understand he was kidding at all."
Trump began questioning national security officials
and other workers about the supposed weapon during his first year in office, according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
- Trump's investigation will reappear periodically until at least 2018.
- Two sources said that when Trump entered his second year in office
- he began dropping the topic and laughed at it periodically.
The then leader of the Free World issue became known as the "hurricane cannon" in some quarters within Trombland.
The other senior official said
- "I was present [once] when he asked if China" made "hurricanes to send to us."
- Trump wanted to know if the technology existed. One man in the room replied
- "Not to my knowledge, sir." I kept it together until I went back to my office...
- I don't know where the president [then] had heard about it...
This blatantly stupid line of inquiry from Trump, previously unnoticed
was just one example of an administration full of Trump's absurd crazy ideas fueling conspiracy theory and political suggestions, many of which were ignored or dropped, preventing further horror.
Last week, it was revealed that Trump's former defense secretary, Mark Esper, stated in his new memoir that his former boss planned a missile attack on Mexico during the time of peace between the two countries, and then tried to blame it. Another country.
Despite leaving office in disgrace
Trump remains the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and the most popular and influential national figure.
He is currently the favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 if he decides to run again.
Trump has made clear to a number of colleagues and advisers that he intends to run for president again
after making it his mission to turn his anti-democratic lies about "stealing" the 2020 election from him into a partisan doctrine.
"It doesn't surprise me at all
says Stephanie Grisham
- a former top Trump aide who has since publicly split from Trump.
- Although Grisham said she wasn't familiar with
- the "Hurricane Gan" conversation
she simply pointed out :
"Things like this weren't strange to him. He was blowing crazy stuff all the time, asking his assistants to look at it or do something about it.
His staff will say that they will consider knowing that often, he will forget about it quickly - like a toddler. "
Trump's questions about the "hurricane gun"
are the latest in a long line of bizarre ideas he has about storms in particular, as well as climate science in general, which he described as a "hoax invented by the Chinese and for them."
Trump insisted on informing the public despite the fact that there are no models expecting Hurricane Dorian to arrive in Alabama during the 2019 hurricane season.
Trump later appeared with a modified map that included a forecast for the Alabama storm.
Sharpiegate was named the wrong Trump sign on the map, and the inspector general's report noted that, under pressure from the White House
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration incorrectly supported Trump's assertion regarding the path of the hurricane.