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Trump wants the U.S. to have 10 times more nukes, report says

Donald Trump told a meeting of country’s highest ranking national security leaders that he wanted a tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The meeting took place on July 20, according to a report from NBC, and Trump’s comment came in response to a graphic that showed the steady decline in the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons since the 1960s. Trump also expressed his desire for additional U.S. troops and military equipment.

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Trump’s comments took his advisers, which included Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by surprise. Officials then proceeded to lay out the implications — both legal and practical — of Trump’s suggestion.

This was the same meeting that NBC sources said they overheard Tillerson refer to the president as “a moron,” which ignited a cable news cycle and caused the president to jokingly challenge Tillerson to an I.Q. test in a Forbes interview. On Wednesday, the president took to Twitter to suggest that NBC should have its broadcast license revoked for purveying “fake news.”

The Pentagon is already reviewing its nuclear posture on Trump’s demands. Any increase would likely lead to a global arms race with Russia and China rushing to match the U.S.

Last December Trump also called for an expansion of the country’s nuclear arsenal.

It was after Trump left the room and the meeting was breaking up that officials overheard Tillerson calling the U.S. president a “moron.”

Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons nonproliferation expert said that in some ways it was unfair to criticize Trump’s question, “because every president “needs to feel comfortable asking dumb questions without fear that it will leak.”

However, he added that “Trump’s reason for wanting more nuclear weapons — he doesn’t want to be at the bottom of the curve — is, well, ‘moronic.”