President Donald Trump said that the reason he directed the United States to conduct new nuclear weapons tests was that countries like China and Russia were secretly doing the same thing.
Trump made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with CBS News correspondent Nora O’Donnell on “60 Minutes” that was broadcast on Sunday. Just before he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had directed the Department of War to start testing America’s nuclear weapons.
“You have to see how they work,” Trump said of his directive. “The reason I’m saying testing is because Russia announced that they were going to be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea’s testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We’re the only country that doesn’t test, and I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test.”
When O’Donnell said that countries like China and Russia hadn’t done nuclear weapons testing, Trump countered that they were doing so secretly.
“Russia’s testing nuclear weapons,” Trump said. “And China’s testing them too. You just don’t know about it.”
“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it. You know, we’re an open society. We’re different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it, because otherwise you people are going to report,” Trump said. “We’re going to test, because they test and others test.”
Trump then suggested that Russia and China may be testing their nuclear weapons underground.
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning denied that China was conducting nuclear weapons tests. She claimed that China has “upheld a self-defense nuclear strategy and abided by its commitment to suspend nuclear testing.”
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to DailyWire.com/Subscribe to join now.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that upcoming U.S. testing would involve systems checks, not nuclear detonations.
“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests,” he said during an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing.” “These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.”
Wright added that the tests would include looking at “all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry and they set up the nuclear explosion.”
The last time the United States detonated a nuclear weapon was in 1992. In 1996, the United States, under President Bill Clinton, signed an international agreement not to test nuclear weapons, but the Senate voted against ratifying the treaty. The last publicly reported test of a nuclear weapon was by North Korea in 2017.