This morning, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted about wanting to create more nuclear weapons. We are not sure why he is tweeting this now, but Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced that they would be expanding nuclear capability in his own country.
That could have something to do with it.
The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016
He called for an arms race when he called into Morning Joe today when he said:
“Let it be an arms race, we will outlast them at every pass.”
On the campaign trail, Trump mentioned that Saudi Arabia should make nuclear weapons to defend themselves from Iran. He said Japan should make them to defend themselves against North Korea. He just threw around the idea of using nuclear weapons so casually. This man is too unstable to be responsible for these extremely dangerous bombs.
Japanese-American actor George Takei tweeted a response to these scary remarks from the Orange Menace:
Trump wants to expand our nuclear arsenal. I think of my aunt and baby cousin, found burnt in a ditch in Hiroshima. These weapons must go.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) December 22, 2016
Some of his family members were living in Hiroshima, Japan, when the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on the city on August 6, 1945.
Back in May, President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima since the war. Takei had this to say about it in an opinion piece for The Guardian:
“I share Obama’s call for a nuclear-free world. We must pledge to work closely with other powers, to reduce not only the number of weapons in our arsenals, but also the numbers of states bearing or seeking to bear them.”
On the day of the attack, Takei said he was in an internment camp with his parents. They were cut off from news from the outside. His mother was worried sick about her family in Hiroshima.
Japanese-Americans were put in these camps soon after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Allied forces celebrated the attack on Hiroshima because they knew it meant that the war would be over soon.
Featured image by Matt Cloutier via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license
