For a second straight day, President-elect Donald Trump sent provocative signals Friday about expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal, while his staff scrambled to temper remarks that suggested a break with four decades of policy charted by presidents of both parties.
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski relayed a conversation she had directly with Trump in which he reportedly said, “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass.”
Shortly afterward, Sean Spicer, who was named Trump’s White House press secretary on Thursday, suggested Trump was describing a hypothetical situation, speaking about what would happen if other countries don’t “come to their senses.”
“If another country wants to expand their nuclear capability, the U.S. is not going to sit back and idly by,” Spicer said on NBC’s “Today” show. “But just to be clear: The president isn’t saying we’re going to do this. He said unless they come to their senses. It’s a warning to them that this president’s going to take action.”
The imbroglio began with a comment Thursday by Trump on Twitter – a preferred means of communication for him – in which he said the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
His tweet followed a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country’s nuclear potential needs fortifying. A renewed arms race would reverse decades of efforts to reduce the number and size of the two countries’ nuclear weapons.
At a news conference Friday, Putin blamed U.S. efforts to develop antimissile technology for creating “conditions for a new arms race.” He also praised Trump for “keenly” feeling public sentiment to win the election and denied the White House’s claims of Russia’s meddling in the vote.
“It’s not us who have been speeding up the arms race,” Putin said, claiming that the Russian military’s nuclear missiles can penetrate any missile defense.
Putin also expressed hope that he would meet soon with Trump to discuss how to improve the two countries’ relations — and would “definitely” visit the United States if Trump invites him.
Trump has his “finger on the pulse of the mood of society,” Putin said.
The Russian leader also added with a smile that “no one but us expected him to win.”
Under New START, the treaty negotiated by President Barack Obama with Russia and ratified by the Senate in 2010, the United States and Russia by February 2018 must have no more than 1,550 strategic weapons deployed. While there is widespread agreement that the U.S. deterrent must be modernized, little enthusiasm has been expressed elsewhere for increasing the number of nuclear warheads.
Trump also released a letter Friday from the Russian leader in which Putin offers his “warmest” Christmas greetings and seeks to restore cooperation with the United States.
“A very nice letter from Vladimir Putin; his thoughts are so correct,” Trump said in a statement regarding the Dec. 15 letter. “I hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts, and we do not have to travel an alternate path.”
In the letter, Putin says that he hopes that, after Trump is sworn in, the two can act “in a constructive and pragmatic manner” and “take real steps to restore the framework of bilateral cooperation in different areas as well as bring our level of collaboration on the international scene to a qualitatively new level.
“Please accept my sincere wishes to you and your family of sound health, happiness, well-being, success and all the best,” the letter concludes.
Trump in the past has expressed admiration for Putin’s leadership qualities. And while U.S. intelligence officials have blamed the Russian leader for meddling in this year’s presidential election, Trump has suggested that other entities could be responsible for the hacked Democratic emails at the center of the controversy.
In a television interview Thursday night, Kellyanne Conway, whom Trump named earlier in the day as a counselor to the president, downplayed the sweep of Trump’s tweet about nuclear proliferation.
“He’s not trying to change a policy through Twitter,” Kellyanne Conway, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “What he’s merely saying is that he wants us to be ready to defend ourselves.”
Conway said Trump’s tweet was directed at “a regime that would do us harm or a rogue nation.”
“I think the point that he’s making is we’re not going to sit back as a country and allow other countries to expand their nuclear capability with the U.S. just sitting idly by,” Spicer said Friday on NBC’s “Today.” “This president is going to take action; he’s going to make sure that American interests are protected.”
