ANXIOUS REPUBLICAN SENATOR CALLS HEARING TO REASSESS TRUMPS NUCLEAR AUTHORITY

[Judi Lynn]

As Trump’s North Korean saber-rattling continues Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker looks to curtail his brinkmanship.

BY TINA NGUYEN
NOVEMBER 9, 2017 11:21 AM

Over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s political opponents repeatedly warned that a man whose ego has driven him to plaster his name on everything from buildings to steaks should not be in charge of America’s considerable nuclear arsenal. Now, with Trump installed in the White House, their concerns are proving unfortunately prescient—the president has made several apocalyptic threats toward North Korea so far, at least one of which the country has interpreted as a declaration of war. And though Trump displayed some restraint during a speech in Seoul on Tuesday, it was only in the sense that he did not threaten the north with “fire and fury”.

Instead, standing 35 miles from the D.M.Z., Trump warned the “military cult”: “Do not underestimate us, and do not try us. The weapons that you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face.”

Less than a day later, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker—chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of Trump’s most outspoken critics—issued a statement calling for a hearing to investigate the president’s authority to use nuclear weapons. “A number of members both on and off our committee have raised questions about the authorities of the legislative and executive branches with respect to war making, the use of nuclear weapons, and conducting foreign policy overall,” he said on Wednesday in a statement to CNBC. He went on to observe that the president’s nuclear authority had not been examined since 1976—over 40 years ago, during the height of the Cold War. “This discussion is long overdue, and we look forward to examining this critical issue,” Corker said.

Though Corker endorsed Trump’s bid for office and was at one point considered for his running mate, he has since announced that he won’t seek re-election, freeing him from political restraint and allowing him to lob bombs in Trump’s direction. “He concerns me,” Corker said of the president last month, adding that he believed Trump was setting America “on the path to World War III.”

More:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/bob-corker-hearing-nuclear-authority-north-korea