Democratic Congresswoman Wants to Ban Presidents from Nuking Hurricanes

A Democratic congresswoman has introduced a bill that would ban the president from using nuclear weapons on hurricanes. The largely symbolic move appears to highlight Donald Trump’s bizarre statements.

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Texas Rep. Sylvia Garcia introduced the Climate Change and Hurricane Correlation and Strategy Act earlier this month. She told The Washington Post about the bill.

If passed, the act would ban the president or any federal official from using a “strategic weapon” for the purpose of “altering weather patterns or addressing climate change.”

Garcia said she has proposed the bill following a report that President Trump had mused about using nuclear weapons to change the course of hurricanes. Trump has denied the story from August.

“I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” Trump reportedly said during a briefing on hurricanes.

“They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?” Trump said, according to a paraphrasing from an official.

“When I heard our president suggest that we needed to launch a nuclear weapon to disrupt a hurricane, my first thought was that’s a really dumb idea,” Rep. Garcia said.

“When we did the research, we found that others have thought of that idea before.”

While experts believe nuking hurricanes would not change their course and could be even worse for the people in their path, the idea was floated even before Trump posed the question.

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Darragh Roche

Darragh Roche is a journalist covering U.S. politics and media