Bolton: Trump ‘doesn’t understand how our nuclear navy works’

Bolton: Trump ‘doesn’t understand how our nuclear navy works’

Tonight, President Trump is issuing a rare threat of nuclear escalation against Russia, saying that he has ordered two nuclear submarines to be repositioned in response to, quote, provocative statements made by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev. We were just talking about nuclear. When you talk about nuclear, we have to be prepared and we’re totally prepared. Trump first made this announcement online, saying this step was just in case. Medvedev’s foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that. It was not immediately clear if Trump was referring to subs with nuclear weapon weapon capabilities, or merely nuclear powered subs. Of course, the current deputy chairman of the Russia Security Council and former president has made a reference to had made a reference to on Thursday to Russia’s Soviet era system capable of launching retaliatory nuclear strikes after Trump told him to, quote, watch his words. The two have been trading verbal attacks since Monday, when Trump slashed his deadline for Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. There’s been no sign that Putin is listening. However. Last night you saw Russia launching its deadliest single attack on Ukraine’s capital this year, killing at least 31 people after striking an apartment block. My source tonight is John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser and ambassador. It’s great to have you here because obviously the former president doesn’t actually have the power to launch Russia’s nuclear weapons here. I mean, he’s for people who don’t know. He’s basically the Kremlin’s online troll in recent days. But I wonder if you believe that President Trump’s actions were warranted here. No, I don’t. I think it’s very risky business for a lot of reasons. Most significantly, it seems to reveal Trump doesn’t really understand how our nuclear navy works and what what their plan of operation is. As for Medvedev, it’s true he is a former Russian president and former prime minister. In fact, always subordinate to Vladimir Putin. Right now, the position he holds is equivalent to deputy national security adviser in the United States. And it’s just really very ill advised to have the president responding to somebody like that. Whatever they’re tweeting on, whatever subject, even if somebody should respond to him, it shouldn’t be the president. But but more fundamentally, what Trump may or may not be understanding here, in which the Kremlin could be misreading, is how the ballistic missile, nuclear submarines that we have, operate and how they function and serve basically as our second strike capability in the event of a of a nuclear war. The the the Ohio class submarines, the ones that carry the ballistic missiles, don’t sit around in port. they’re out in a complex, obviously highly classified schedule to on what are called extended deterrence patrols. That is to say, they are a sufficient number of them are in position right now to retaliate against a Russian nuclear attack. That’s why they’re, they’re put out there. So they don’t have to go anywhere. They’re already there and are hopefully undetectable so that a Russian or later a Chinese first strike can’t take them out at the beginning. So to say he’s going to move those kinds of submarines anywhere indicates he doesn’t know how they work right now. Do you think anyone in his national security team is is discussing this with him? I have no idea. I certainly know from my own experience that you could find a tweet coming out any hour of the day or night on some national security issue that that came directly from Trump. So it’s possible that’s what happened here. I hope somebody from the Pentagon who understands the disposition of the nuclear force, explains this to Trump at some stage. And as I said, well, while the ballistic missile submarines are core to our second strike capability, they are also perfectly capable of being part of a first strike on Russia. So you could see people in the Kremlin obviously always nervous about our capabilities, believe that Trump is trying to and trying to insinuate that he may be considering a first strike, which is even more dangerous. Well, and this is coming. as his envoy, Steve Witkoff, who was in Gaza today, is going to Russia, I believe, today. The president said he’s going right after he left Gaza. The last days of the week of May to Russia did not result in any concrete changes. Obviously, the war still raging in Ukraine. do you expect a different outcome this time? Potentially. No, I don’t I don’t think Putin takes the threat seriously, that Trump has been making a bad secondary sanctions, which would involve, more sanctions, more tariffs, whatever, on countries like India and China that have been buying Russian oil and gas, contrary to US and EU sanctions because of the war in Ukraine. Putin, for whatever reason, thinks that he the Russians are winning in Ukraine despite the horrific human cost. And obviously, after six months of trying to get a cease fire, Trump has failed. No indication that’s going to change. Yeah, we’ll see if it does. Ambassador John Bolton, great to have you. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. Russia is warning some of Ukraine’s allies that they could become targets of its new intermediate range hypersonic missile. President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday the Oreshnik missile has entered production and will be deployed in Belarus. It’s the kind of weapon once banned under a defunct Soviet era treaty. He also said Moscow could use it against the countries that gave Ukraine their longer range weapons for strikes on Russia. The missile has already been battle tested in Ukraine, where Russia used it to strike the city of Dnipro last November. The weapon is believed to have the range of up to 3400 miles, or 50 500km. Putin claims it flies ten times the speed of sound and can carry multiple warheads on. Moscow and Washington are engaging in some nuclear saber rattling amid a verbal spat between their current and former presidents. Former Russian leader Dmitri Medvedev recently brought up Russia’s nuclear strike capabilities as part of a back and forth with US President Donald Trump. You were arguing after Trump shortened his deadline for Russia to make peace with Ukraine. But as Britain reports, Trump answered by redeploying some of his own nuclear fleet. President Trump on Friday announced that he is ordering two nuclear submarines to be deployed closer, potentially to Russia, following remarks by former presidents former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on social media alluding to Russia’s nuclear capabilities. President Trump essentially said that the reason why he is deploying these nuclear submarines is because, quote, Medvedev has made foolish and inflammatory statement, and he wants to have these nuclear submarines available in the region. Should those statements be, quote, more than just that, President Trump said, quote, words are very important and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances. Now, it’s unclear at this point. just what kind of nuclear submarines are going to be repositioned. The U.S. has nuclear powered submarines. Essentially all of its submarines are nuclear powered, but only about 14 of them are actually capable of carrying nuclear weapons. And it is a long standing policy of the United States to neither confirm nor deny when its submarines that are capable of carrying these nuclear warheads are actually carrying them. And so at this point, it’s not clear what kind of submarines are being repositioned and just what they’re carrying. However, it’s worth noting that it is very extraordinary for the U.S. to reveal at all where its nuclear submarines actually are in the world. These nuclear capable submarines, they routinely patrol near U.S. adversaries, including Russia and China, for example. but it is very, very, uncommon and very rare for the U.S. to say anything about their particular whereabouts because, of course, they are meant to operate in extreme secrecy. So what this is essentially doing is sending a signal to the Russians that the U.S. has these capabilities and that they’re nearby. we should also note that as of right now, the Kremlin has not responded to President Trump’s announcement that he would be deploying these nuclear submarines. Natasha Bertrand, CNN in Washington. Earlier, CNN spoke about the submarine deployment with former NATO Supreme Allied commander, retired General Wesley Clark. And he said President Trump’s move plays right into Russia’s hands. Here he is. It probably feeds the Russian disinformation point out, because it raises the temperature, scares people, that there might be a nuclear. And that’s what Russia has been trying to do all along, is scare people about nuclear. Or if you want an effective response, you push the weapons into Ukraine. And instead they’ve been slowed to a trickle. So, you know, this is just rhetoric, but it’s rhetoric that he may think it makes him look strong and tough in front of some supporters, but actually it works against us and in favor of Russia. Well, I think Medvedev is a provocateur operating on Mr. Putin’s instructions. And I think it’s all it’s a long series of these statements designed to intimidate the West, to not help us to to rationalize, not supporting Ukraine. And so when we play into it with a nuclear submarine maneuvers, we’re playing into that Russian information game. But if you really want to move toward a cease fire or toward a resolution, the only way to do it is on the ground. And that is, we’ve got to stop the Russian advance. Cold. And you’ve got to convince Mr. Putin. He’s going to lose. And he should stop right now, because you’re going to lose more if he continues. Now, if you’re not willing to do that, if you’re afraid of doing that. he’s going to continue to issue provocative statements. He’s going to continue to say, oh, let’s not talk about peace. And he’s going to send people forward. He’s got 30,000 North Korean troops lined up on four crossed. He’s got a new front. He’s opening a run through me and the big punchbowl come toward Nikolayev and Odessa sometime in September. And that’s the Russian game plan. That’s what they’ve been working on. And all of the rest of the stuff is is just, It’s just nonsense. The sanctions are not going to stop that machine from coming forward. So we’ve got a few weeks to do more on the ground. That’s it.

President Donald Trump issued a rare threat of nuclear escalation on Friday, saying he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be strategically positioned near Russia in response to what he said were aggressive remarks by Dmitry Medvedev, the country’s former president and current deputy chairman of its Security Council. Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton joins CNN’s Kaitlan Collins to discuss his take. #CNN #News