Trump had alarmed non-proliferation experts on Thursday with a Twitter post that said the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski spoke with Trump on the phone and asked him to expand on his tweet.
She said he responded: “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”
Shares of uranium producers and a nuclear fuel technology company have jumped on Trump’s comments with Uranium Resources Inc, Uranium Energy Corp, Cameco Corp and Lightbridge Corp all trading higher on Friday.
It was not clear what prompted Thursday’s tweet by Trump, a Republican who takes office on Jan 20, but it came the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country needed to boost its nuclear forces.
In his year-end news conference in Moscow on Friday, Putin said Trump’s comment on Wednesday was not out of line and that he did not consider the United States to be a potential aggressor.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said in several television interviews on Friday that there would not be an arms race because the president-elect would ensure that other countries trying to step up their nuclear capabilities, such as Russia and China, would decide not to do so.
“He’s going to ensure that other countries get the message that he’s not going to sit back and allow that,” Spicer, who was named this week as White House spokesman for the president-elect, told NBC.
“And what’s going to happen is they will come to their senses, and we will all be just fine.”A statement from a member of the incoming White House press team, communications director Jason Miller, failed to clarify the issue.
Trump had “emphasised the need to improve and modernize our deterrent capability as a vital way to pursue peace through strength”, Miller said. He later told Reuters Trump was not advocating the use of nuclear weapons and that the tweet should not be read as a new policy proposal.
In a press conference on Friday, Putin said he saw “nothing unusual” in Trump’s comments. The Russian president added that any arms race was caused by the US pulling out of the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty – under George W Bush in 2002 – and said: “If someone is stimulating a nuclear arms race it’s not us.”
On MSNBC, speaking to camera, Scarborough said: “Mica asked the president-elect while we had the opportunity … to clarify the tweet yesterday regarding the nuclear arsenal. And the president-elect told you what?”
“‘Let it be an arms race’,” Brzezinski said. “‘We will outmatch them at every pass.’”
“‘And outlast them all’,” Scarborough added.
“And outlast them all,” Brzezinski repeated, wonderingly.
“You can put that down as breaking news,” Scarborough said. Trump is spending Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. His main engagement for the day was a round of golf with Tiger Woods.--Reuters
Trump’s reported remark contradicted comments to the same network from the incoming White House press secretary, Republican National Committee communications chief Sean Spicer.
He told NBC Trump would not allow an arms race, because he would stop other countries from increasing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
“He’s going to ensure that other countries get the message that he’s not going to sit back and allow that,” Spicer said. “And what’s going to happen is they will come to their senses, and we will all be just fine.”
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