President Donald Trump fired national security adviser John Bolton by tweet, largely over their disagreement on holding peace talks with the Taliban at Camp David, but the president also had lost trust in his adviser.
Bolton strongly disagreed with Trump’s desire to meet with Taliban leaders and his willingness to meet with Iran’s president, but three sources revealed that Trump was angry at Bolton for another reason, reported CBS News.
Those sources, who were directly involved, said Trump was driven to distraction by his belief that Bolton or those close to him had leaked a story about the president asking whether nuclear weapons could be used against hurricanes.
Axios reported last month that Trump had asked senior Homeland Security and national security officials multiple times to explore using nukes to stop hurricanes from hitting the U.S., and they stood behind their reporting after the president denied asking about it.
“I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” Trump asked, according to one source who was present. “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”
Related: ‘They Quoted Your Staff’: Trump Massively Mocked for Denying Report He Wanted to Nuke Hurricanes
The White House official assured the president they would look into that, but sources said aides were astonished by Trump’s question.
A National Security Council memo from 2017 shows that Trump asked about bombing hurricanes.
Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license