Hillary Clinton on Monday bashed President Donald Trump after he said that he has an idea of dropping nuclear bombs into hurricanes in order to prevent them from reaching the United States.
“We should not nuke hurricanes,” Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, tweeted.
Her comments came just a day after Axios reported that Trump had floated the idea in meetings with Homeland Security and national security officials.
The news outlet, citing sources who have heard the President’s private remarks and have been briefed on a National Security Council memorandum, noted that the President made the suggestions while receiving briefings about hurricanes.
“Why don’t we nuke them?” Trump reportedly said at a White House briefing, asserting that a bomb “inside the eye of the hurricane” could disrupt it.
Trump earlier Monday pushed back against the report, saying that the story was “fake news.”
“The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous,” he tweeted. “I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!”
The idea of utilizing nuclear weapons to thwart hurricanes has been floated before. A fact sheet from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration notes that the idea gains attention every hurricane season. But the organization said that the action could cause substantial harm to the environment.
“Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems,” the sheet reads. “Needless to say, this is not a good idea.”
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