Leid Stories—A Senate Hearing’s Focus: ‘Unstable,’ ‘Volatile’ Trump and His Sole Power Over Nuclear Weapons—11.15.17

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing yesterday that, though understated, was explosive in its import. The hearing’s focus: What measures are in place, or need to be in place, to check President Donald Trump’s sole authority to use nuclear weapons?

It’s not accidental that the issue is being raised now. “We are concerned that the president of the United States is so unstable and is so volatile … that he might order a nuclear weapon strike that is so wildly out of step with U.S. national security interests,” Mother Jones’s Davis Corn reports committee member Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) as saying.

Leid Stories says it also is significant that Trump’s mental state is being tied to official policy.