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<ul class="summary-list"><li>US officials are questioning Putin's grip on reality as <keyword id="11894337" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="russia" source="Orion">Russia</keyword> attacks <keyword id="11985141" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ukraine" source="Orion">Ukraine</keyword>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/us/politics/putin-nuclear-alert-biden-deescalation.html">The NYT reported</a>.</li><li>Putin put Russia's nuclear arsenal at a high alert on Sunday, raising the stakes in the conflict.</li></ul><p>US intelligence agencies are urgently debating the possibility that President <keyword id="11899444" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="vladimir-putin" source="Orion">Vladimir Putin</keyword> of Russia has lost touch with reality, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/us/politics/putin-nuclear-alert-biden-deescalation.html">The New York Times reported on Sunday.</a></p><p>The report followed a series of seemingly erratic public performances by the Russian leader, with the debate gaining a new intensity after he increased Russia's level of nuclear readiness on Sunday. </p><p>Last week, Putin in a televised national security council meeting humiliated and berated his foreign intelligence chief, Sergey Naryshkin.</p><p>Later, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-announces-military-assault-against-ukraine-in-surprise-speech-2022-2?r=US&amp;IR=T">in a paranoid and grievance-filled speech</a> broadcast moments before the launch of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last week, he sought to rewrite history by denying that Ukraine exists as an independent country. </p><p>Putin had been previously seen as brutal but a coldly rational actor. Yet some experts have said that his isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he tightly restricted his interactions with the wider world, might have affected his sense of reality.</p><p>Putin's recent meetings with top officials and foreign leaders have often featured the Russian leader seated at one end of a huge table and the dignitaries at another in an apparent bid to keep infection at bay. </p><div type="image" title="Putin, Macron" height="512" width="1024" msid="89898605" hostid="261"></div><p>"He's out at his compound, doesn't come into town very much, and, under COVID, he's been more isolated," <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-us-ambassador-to-russia-says-putin-increasingly-unhinged-2022-2?r=US&amp;IR=T">said Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia,</a> in a Sunday appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press."</p><p>James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/02/27/9a-panel-full.cnn">echoed the view in a CNN interview.</a> "I personally think he's unhinged," Clapper said. "I worry about his acuity and balance."</p><p>Another school of thought among US intelligence officials, according to The Times, is that Putin's behavior is an elaborate bluff.</p><p>By this theory, he is acting the part of the "madman" in order to confuse and disconcert the West. According to the Times report, the assessment is part of an array of material being used by President Joe Biden's administration to judge its response. </p><p>It's a version of President Richard Nixon's so-called "<keyword id="13275777" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="madman-theory" source="Orion">madman theory</keyword>," <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/nixons-nuclear-specter-the-secret-alert-1969-madman-diplomacy-and-the-vietnam-war">with the former US president in 1969 bluffing that he was willing to launch a nuclear strike on Vietnam</a>. His hope — which did not come to pass — was that North Vietnamese leaders would quickly come to the negotiating table and end the Vietnam War. </p><p>Michael Horowitz, an analyst at the security consultancy Le Beck International, picked up on the idea, tweeting, "There is a 'Madman theory' in international relations, which is basically to intentionally appear irrational.</p><p>"If this is what Putin is doing," he added, "then he is frighteningly good at it."</p><p>The nature of Putin's intentions has long been one of the key questions of the Ukraine crisis. </p><p>Many Western analysts wrongly believed that Putin had been bluffing when he threatened invasion by massing his forces on the Ukrainian border in order to extract security concessions from the West.</p><p>Those predictions turned out to be wrong, as last week Putin ordered a full-scale invasion, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-russia-is-attacking-ukraine-putin-justification-for-invasion-2022-2?r=US&amp;IR=T">tipping Europe into its gravest security crisis for decades</a>.</p>

US intel agencies are debating whether Putin has lost mental faculties or is bluffing to unnerve the West, report says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A Trump official indulged a theory that Italian satellites were used in Biden's favor.</li><li><keyword id="12539930" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="christopher-miller" source="Orion">Christopher Miller</keyword>, acting defense secretary, called officials in Italy to investigate it.</li></ul><p>The defense secretary President <keyword id="11914386" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="donald-trump" source="Orion">Donald Trump</keyword> appointed after he lost the 2020 election tried to investigate a voter fraud conspiracy that a Justice Department official described as "pure insanity."</p><p>Trump appointed Christopher Miller as acting defense secretary on November 9, 2020, after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper days after losing the election to Joe Biden. Miller, a former US Army Special Forces soldier, was at that time the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.</p><p>Testimony from the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-scott-perry-mo-brooks-doj-election-fraud-pressure-campaign-2022-6#trumps-scheme-didnt-end-at-the-waters-edge-5">January 6 committee hearing</a> on Thursday revealed Miller indulged one of the more bizarre election conspiracy theories, which claimed that an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-pushed-italian-satellite-election-fraud-conspiracy-theory-2021-6">Italian defense contractor had uploaded software to a satellite that then switched votes from Trump to Biden</a>.</p><p>GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/former-doj-official-calls-italian-211537984.html">said</a> the baseless theory made it to the White House after Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania sent a 20-minute YouTube video to Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, along with the message: "Why can't we just work with the Italian government?"</p><p>Meadows then sent the video to the Justice Department, where it reached <keyword id="14198433" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="richard-donoghue" source="Orion">Richard Donoghue</keyword>, the acting US deputy attorney general at the time. Donoghue told the committee on Thursday that he watched the video at the time.</p><p>"I emailed the acting attorney general and I said, 'pure insanity,' which was my impression of the video, which was patently absurd," Donoghue said.</p><p>But after Meadows brought the theory to the Department of Defense to investigate, Miller looked into it, according to the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/january-6-hearings-june-23/h_eed6cecc17ff18e05a1bfeacf4574ef8">testimony</a> he gave the committee that was played on Thursday.</p><p>Kinzinger said Miller called the defense attaché in Italy to ask about the claim.</p><p>"The ask for him was, can you call out to defense attaché Rome and find out what the heck's going on? Because I'm getting all these weird crazy reports and probably the guy on the ground knows more than anything," Miller said.</p><p>"This wild, baseless <keyword id="12003796" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="conspiracy-theory" source="Orion">conspiracy theory</keyword> made it from the recesses of the internet to the highest echelons of our government," Kinzinger said on Thursday, adding: "This is one of the best examples of the lengths to which President Trump would go to stay in power."</p><p>Miller served as acting defense secretary until January 20, 2021, when Trump left office. He <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/i-cannot-wait-to-leave-this-job-defense-secretary-miller-2021-1">told</a> reporters in the days prior: "I cannot wait to leave this job."</p><p>He also said that at one point in his tenure he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/defense-secretary-miller-pretended-madman-prevent-trump-bombing-iran-pompeo-2021-11">acted like a "fucking madman"</a> to dissuade Trump from attacking Iran, according to ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl's book "Betrayal."</p>

Trump's acting defense secretary tried to investigate a voter fraud conspiracy involving Italian satellites that the DOJ called 'pure insanity'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Supporters of the far-right <keyword id="9152811" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="qanon">QAnon</keyword> movement appeared jubilant after President <keyword id="6354484" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Donald-Trump">Donald Trump</keyword> praised them in public for the first time.</li><li>The movement's supporters have largely been barred from mainstream platforms, but they shared celebratory messages and memes on alternative networks like Gab.</li><li>"I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate," he said. "But I don't know much about the movement. I have heard that it is gaining in popularity."</li><li>The president had previously shared messages from pro-QAnon accounts on Twitter, but Wednesday was the first time he'd explicitly approved of the movement.</li><li>The movement has been identified as a domestic-terrorism threat by the FBI, and experts have warned that the president's comments will embolden its sometimes-violent supporters.</li></ul><p>Supporters of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory are celebrating after President Donald Trump explicitly acknowledged and praised them in public for the first time.</p><p>Speaking at a White House press briefing, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-praises-qanon-conspiracists-because-they-like-me-very-much-2020-8">Trump responded to a question asking about his views on the movement</a>.</p><p>QAnon posits that Trump is on a secret mission to dismantle a network of child abusers involving top Democrats, "deep state" agents, and Hollywood stars. There is no evidence this is true.</p><p>"I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate," he said. "But I don't know much about the movement. I have heard that it is gaining in popularity."</p><p>He added: "These are people that don't like seeing what's going on in places like Portland and places like Chicago and New York and other cities and states, and I've heard these are people that love our country."</p><p>The movement was identified as a domestic-terrorism threat by <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/fbi-documents-conspiracy-theories-terrorism-160000507.html">the FBI in documents obtained by Yahoo News last year</a>.</p><p>QAnon supporters have been tied to a series of violent crimes around the country, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/04/23/qanon-conspiracy-increasingly-popular-antigovernment-extremists">according to the civil-rights nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center</a>.</p><p>In late July, thousands of pro-QAnon accounts were removed from Twitter. Facebook followed suit this week, banning thousands of accounts and groups.</p><p>But on fringe platforms such as Gab and Parler, where many supporters have regrouped, they were jubilant following a moment they seemed to have long anticipated.</p><p>"Trumps answer yesterday has me grinning like a madman, even hours later. It's been a great honor observing and participating in this movement!" one supporter wrote <a href="https://gab.com/Anon_Until_Its_Over/posts/104720324179855438">on Gab</a>, an online gathering space used often by the far right.</p><p>"It's not over yet but I just had to share my feelings on this watershed happening."</p><p>On the Parler platform, <a href="https://share.par.pw/post/7a612249a89e49839f4e6a3437c42f1a">another supporter wrote</a>: "'I've just heard these people love our country' - Donald J. Trump on 'The #QAnon Movement' Hold tight, anons. The best is yet to come."</p><p>Other supporters celebrated the news with memes.</p><div type="image" title="QAnon, Gab" height="1000" width="2000" msid="77654737" hostid="261"></div><p>Experts have warned that Trump's comments will further embolden the movement and be interpreted as proof that its elaborate theories are true.</p><p>For about a year, Trump and top officials have been giving tacit signs of approval of the movement, sharing tweets by pro-QAnon accounts and slogans associated with the movement.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-sources-propaganda-from-qanon-network-2020-6">Business Insider in July reported</a> that some of Trump's most popular slogans, including the #Obamagate hashtag, were being sourced from a large network of QAnon accounts on Twitter.</p><p>After the president used the slogans, the network then repeated and further amplified his messages.</p><p>At the time, neither the White House nor the Trump campaign would comment on the president's apparent embrace of QAnon. Business Insider has sent further requests for comment in light of Trump's statement Wednesday.</p><p>Speaking with Business Insider in July, the University of Manchester professor Peter Knight, an expert on US <keyword id="1379614" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="conspiracy-theories">conspiracy theories</keyword>, said there was a large overlap between QAnon and Trump's traditional base. He said encouraging the movement would be to the president's electoral advantage.</p><p>The QAnon movement emerged in 2017 in on the messaging boards 4Chan and 8Chan, when a user began posting cryptic messages claiming to be a US government official with "Q-level" clearance alleging a child-abuse plot Trump was seeking to dismantle.</p><p>Trump supporters soon began to show up at rallies carrying signs and wearing clothing emblazoned with Q slogans, and the movement has seeped into the congressional GOP.</p><p><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/ongoing-list-how-republicans-have-built-qanon-conspiracy-theory">Media Matters for America has documented that 70 Republican candidates</a> have expressed support for QAnon.</p><p>On <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-republican-endorsed-by-trump-promotes-911-conspiracy-2020-8">August 12, Marjorie Taylor Greene won the party primary</a> for a safe GOP seat in Georgia, meaning she is likely to become the first supporter of the movement elected to Congress.</p>

QAnon supporters are celebrating after Trump publicly praised the conspiracy movement for the first time

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>KCNA via Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Trump is employing the "madman" strategy to dealing with a nuclear North Korea</strong></li><li><strong>It's an approach straight from his own heart - and the "Art of the Deal"</strong></li><li><strong>And while it's a legitimate strategy, it may end up proving disastrous</strong></li></ul><p>Retired general David Petraeus cautioned that President Donald Trump's "madman" approach to dealing with a nuclear North Korea may actually be a legitimate strategy - though it could ultimately prove disastrous.</p><p><span>Speaking at the </span><a href="http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/unresolved-face-china">Intelligence Squared US</a> <span><a href="http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/unresolved-face-china">debate</a> at New York University with the Council on Foreign Relations' Max Boot, Petraeus - who commanded US and NATO troops in Afghanistan and served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under former President Barack Obama - discussed how there may actually be some "merit" to Trump's madman stance, though it can easily "go too far" in a crisis. </span></p><p><span>The "madman" theory boils down to a negotiation strategy that keeps the opposing side "off-balance" through a lack of consistency, Petraeus said. </span></p><p><span>For example, Petraeus described how former President Richard Nixon's Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, would tell his Soviet counterparts during the height of the Cold War, "You know, Nixon's under a lot of pressure right now and, you know, he drinks at night sometimes, so you guys ought to be real careful." </span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Samuel Lahoz</span></p><p class="caption">David Petraeus speaks to Max Boot at New York University in New York City on Wednesday, September 13.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>"Don't push - don't push this into a crisis," Petraeus said, paraphrasing Kissinger's negotiation tactic. Boot noted that Nixon had tried to scare North Vietnam into making peace with this strategy, which, as we all know, didn't work. </span></p><p><span>And Petraeus cautioned while "madman" posturing may be useful, it can prove disastrous in a crisis if the other side views you as "irrational." </span></p><p><span>"You do not want the other side thinking that you might be sufficiently irrational to conduct a first strike or to do something, you know, so-called unthinkable," Petraeus said. </span></p><p>That notwithstanding, it's a theory that's close to Trump's own heart.  </p><p><span>In his book, the "Art of the Deal," Trump advocates an approach to negotiation where he "plays to people's fantasies," and will always "fight back," if the deal doesn't seem to be going his way, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-business-philosophy-from-the-art-of-the-deal-2015-6">Business Insider's Rich Feloni previously reported</a>. </span></p><p>"<span>That's why a little hyperbole never hurts," Trump said.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst</span></p><p class="caption">President Donald Trump in Florida.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>Trump's madman approach to North Korea's bellicose rhetoric and its increasingly frequent missile launches was on full display when he said <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-trump-missile-threat-guam-fire-fury-2017-8">he'd respond to Kim Jong Un's aggression</a> with "fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen before." And while that may be hyperbole, the North Koreans may not see it that way - and may take it as a signal to launch a pre-emptive strike on Guam or South Korea. </p><p><span>Trump's threat hasn't cowed North Korea, either. On Friday morning local time, the Hermit Kingdom <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-fires-missile-near-pyongyang-south-korea-japan-2017-9">fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan </a>- that experts said is easily capable of reaching US military bases in Guam - less than two weeks after the regime tested what it said was a hydrogen bomb. </span></p><p><span>Kim Jong Un himself seems to be employing the madman strategy to great effect as well, to keep the US, its allies, and the larger international community guessing as to what his next move may be. </span><span>Reuters reported that North Korea's state <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> agency on Thursday threatened to use nuclear weapons to "sink" Japan and reduce the US to "ashes and darkness" a day prior to the missile test.</span></p><p><span>While the madman theory may have its use in international relations, when it comes to nuclear conflict, it's a strategy with risks that vastly outweigh the reward. </span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-south-korea-stealth-bombing-drills-direct-response-north-korea-japan-2017-8">The US conducted bombing drills with advanced warplanes as a 'direct response' to North Korea's missile launch over Japan</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Petraeus says Trump's 'madman' approach to North Korea could be effective - until it becomes disastrous

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>US President Donald Trump, who prides himself on being a good dealmaker, laid out a herculean task for himself in a recent interview saying he'd get China to address the North Korean threat - and his best shot is to convince China that he's crazy. </p><p>"China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won't," Trump<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9ae777ea-17ac-11e7-a53d-df09f373be87" target="_blank"> told the Financial Times</a>, adding that "<span>if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will."</span></p><p><span>But according to Joel Wit, the co-founder of <a href="http://38north.org/" target="_blank">38 North</a> and a State Department employee during one of the US's few diplomatic successes with North Korea in 1993, "China is not going to help enough," though it would likely take some small steps to avoid looking like they've stiffed Trump. </span></p><p><span>Perhaps the best shot Trump has at getting China to significantly budge on their policy is to convince them he's a madman, capable of making the extremely dangerous and deadly action of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-us-would-strike-north-korea-2017-3" target="_blank">striking North Korea with military force</a>.</span></p><p><span>The US wants China to sever all economic ties with North Korea and thereby put enormous pressure on the Kim regime to scale back its nuclear ambitions. But according to Wit, "China's not gonna do that," and meanwhile Trump and his top representatives openly mull military action against the Kim regime like never before. </span></p><p><span>"They have their own interests. They want to maintain stability in North Korea and keep North Korea as a buffer against the US and South Korea," Wit said.</span></p><p><span>"China and the US share the goal of removing nuclear weapons of from North Korea, but that's the extent to which the US's and China's interests overlap," Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project, told Business Insider.</span></p><p><span>Glaser pointed out that China has taken the US's side in theory, backing every single UN resolution against North Korea since 2006, "</span><span>but it has of course watered down most if not all of those security council resolutions because it has not wanted to agree to sanctions that might create instability in North Korea." </span></p><p><span>"And if it won't cause instability, it's probably not likely to be tough enough to cause Kim Jong-un to rethink his strategy and priorities," said Glaser, who noted that <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2017-03-21/making-china-pay-north-korea" target="_blank">85% of North Korea's external trade is with China</a>. </span></p><p><span>And even if Trump managed to sway China to break with decades of its own policy with its neighbor, "the North Koreans are not gonna buckle under pressure from China," Wit said. "That's not their mentality."</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>Kim Jong-un regularly purges North Korea's elite of those with ties to China or loyalties anywhere outside of the Hermit Kingdom, which has left Xi with limited influence on the peninsula. </span></p><p><span>Wit likened the idea that China could unilaterally fix the West's North Korea problem to a "</span><span>pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" in that it "really doesn't exist."</span></p><p><span>But the Trump administration is not like other administrations. </span></p><p><span>For decades, US presidents have urged NATO countries to pay their share. Arguably, Trump has been more effective in conveying the urgency of that message, frequently slamming the alliance on the campaign trail and calling it "obsolete."</span></p><p><span>Trump has stuck to US orthodoxy on NATO essentially, with his secretary of state recently pushing the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-montenegro-tillerson-trump-russia-2017-3" target="_blank">Senate to ratify Montenegro</a>, a small country who could at best make a tiny contribution to NATO spending, as the 29th member of the alliance.</span></p><p><span>While some in the media question Trump's credibility after largely unsubstantiated claims of mass <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-attorneys-said-no-evidence-voter-fraud-2017-1" target="_blank">voter fraud</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-trump-alleges-wire-tapping-by-obama-during-campaign-2017-3" target="_blank">wire tapping</a>, he certainly rattled China by breaking with decades of US policy by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-phone-call-to-taiwan-likely-to-infuriate-china-2016-12" target="_blank">taking a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen in December</a>.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>"I don't disagree that the Chinese see the Trump factor as unpredictable," said Glaser. "I think that they are quite worried about what Trump might do in the area of trade and economics - that's really credible."</span></p><p><span>"If people think you're crazy enough to do something, it may make them more willing to be more flexible and give them what they want" Wit said of Trump's posturing. Wit also recalled the "madman doctrine," for which Nixon was known for operating under.</span></p><p><span>For example, Nixon flew nuclear bombers near the Russian border for days to project an unhinged image to Soviet leadership, knowing all the while that nuclear war between the US and Soviets would be a worldwide disaster.</span></p><p><span>For Trump, war with North Korea, a rising nuclear state, could easily prove disastrous too. </span></p><p><span>"I think it's almost a universal that with military strikes the downsides are just so great that it's hard to see them taking place," said Wit. Even if North Korea didn't fire a single nuclear missile, which<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-would-use-nuclear-weapons-nukes-thae-yung-ho-2017-4" target="_blank"> the US has every reason to believe they would</a>, they have such a massive artillery installment that they could likely level parts of South Korea's capital, Seoul, within hours. </span></p><p><span>In a best-case scenario, thousands of civilians would likely die in a strike on North Korea. In worse scenarios, civilian dead would number in the millions. </span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>However, the US has flown nuclear-armed bombers around the Korean Peninsula for years, and the old "madman" tricks haven't yielded any tangible results. </span></p><p>"The Chinese are smart enough to think about the various military options, so they probably have concluded that there's a very low likelihood" the US would strike North Korea, said Glaser. "I don't think that that has been a serious military option for the US for the last 15 to 20 years."</p><p><span>But the question when Trump meets Xi will not be if the US can or will take out the Kim regime, but if he can convince China's leader that he's willing to act a bit crazy and go further than any administration before him in terms of military, or economic pressure to get his way. </span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/drivetanks-military-museum-tanks-guns-flamethrowers-texas-shooting-weapons-military-army-wwii-2017-3">You can drive tanks and shoot huge guns at this Texas ranch</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="twZXFoYTE62yKnvsZDFUJpc69zucZKDg" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

For Trump to force China's hand against North Korea, he may need to convince them he's a madman

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Trump asked Obama how he kept his approval ratings high in 2016, according to a forthcoming book by NYT's Maggie Haberman.</li><li>Trump posed the question when the two men first met in the Oval Office after he won the 2016 election.</li></ul><p>Shortly after Donald Trump won the 2016 US election, he asked then-President Barack Obama how he managed to keep high approval ratings.</p><p>That's according to "Confidence Man," a forthcoming book by The New York Times' Maggie Haberman, an advance copy of which was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/28/trump-book-white-house-bomb-mexico/?utm_campaign=wp_main&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social" target="_blank" rel="noopener">obtained by The Washington Post</a>.</p><p>Trump asked Obama about his approval ratings the first time the two of them met in the Oval Office after Trump clinched his 2016 election victory, according to Haberman. The meeting came after both men lobbed harsh insults at one another on the campaign trail, with Obama calling Trump unfit for the presidency and Trump spreading the racist birther conspiracy theory about Obama and accusing him of being soft on terrorism.</p><p>But Trump's demeanor changed when he met with Obama in the Oval Office, according to the journalist Jonathan Karl's memoir, "Front Row at the Trump Show."</p><p>"I was immediately struck by Trump's body language," Karl wrote. "I was seeing a side of him I had never seen. He seemed, believe it or not, humbled."</p><p>Indeed, Trump <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/11/10/501566466/in-surreal-moment-president-elect-donald-trump-meets-with-president-obama" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> after the meeting that he had "great respect" for Obama, called him a "very good man," and said he looked forward to seeking Obama's "counsel" in the future. Obama also struck a more conciliatory tone toward Trump, saying after Trump won that he would not publicly attack his successor.</p><p>But any goodwill between the two men was short-lived. In the years after he took office, Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/02/obama-trump-tower-wiretap-no-evidence-242284" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused Obama</a> of having Trump Tower wiretapped, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/sep/24/they-gave-one-to-obama-trump-complains-he-deserves-a-nobel-prize-video" target="_blank" rel="noopener">complained</a> about Obama winning the Nobel Prize, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/03/06/here-are-the-photos-that-show-obamas-inauguration-crowd-was-bigger-than-trumps/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">falsely claimed</a> that his inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama's, and became obsessed with overturning his predecessor's key achievements, including the Affordable Care Act, the Trans Pacific Partnership, and the Iran Nuclear Deal.</p><p>Obama, meanwhile, refrained from publicly attacking Trump but didn't mince words when talking about the 45th president in private, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/19/barack-obama-donald-trump-book" target="_blank" rel="noopener">calling him</a> a "racist pig," a "madman," and a "corrupt motherfucker." That's according to the journalist Edward-Isaac Dovere's book, "Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump."</p><p>Shortly after Trump beat Clinton in the 2016 election, Obama's approval rating <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/obama-approval-rating-trump-election-2016-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rocketed its highest level in seven years</a>, according to a CNN poll released two weeks after Election Day 2016. He <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/poll-obama-approval-ratings-233725" target="_blank" rel="noopener">left office on a high note</a> as well, with a majority of voters — 53% — approving of the job he did as president, per a Politico/Morning Consult poll taken in January 2017.</p><p>Trump left office with record low approval ratings. As he prepared to exit the White House, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/328637/last-trump-job-approval-average-record-low.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gallup found</a> that just 34% of Americans approved of his job performance, and his average approval rating was <a href="https://fortune.com/2021/01/18/trump-approval-rating-average-popularity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lower than that of any of his predecessors</a> since Gallup began its survey in 1940.</p>

Trump privately asked Obama how he got high approval ratings, book says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Obama turned his congenial nature on its head and slammed Trump behind the scenes, a new book says.</li><li>It reportedly says Obama called Trump a "corrupt motherf---er," a "madman," and a "f---ing lunatic."</li><li>Obama and Trump have long had a testy relationship.</li></ul><p>After leaving office in 2017, President <keyword id="15962" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Barack-Obama">Barack Obama</keyword>, known for his affable nature, largely didn't speak out against his successor, President <keyword id="6354484" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Donald-Trump">Donald Trump</keyword>.</p><p>But by the time the 2020 presidential campaign came around, the gloves were off.</p><p>With Joe Biden in the throes of a campaign to unseat an incumbent president, Obama made several high-profile campaign appearances for his former vice president <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-biden-campaign-event-live-stream-today-2020-10-21/">where he slammed Trump</a>.</p><p>He also voiced plenty of R-rated criticism of Trump behind the scenes, according to "<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/19/edward-isaac-dovere-2020-campaign-book-excerpt-joe-biden-kamala-harris-489347">Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump</a>," a new book by Edward-Isaac Dovere, a staff writer at The Atlantic. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/19/barack-obama-donald-trump-book">The Guardian</a> on Wednesday reported on excerpts from the book, set to be released next week.</p><p>According to The Guardian, the book says that in conversations with donors and political advisors, Obama called Trump a "corrupt motherf---er," a "madman," a "racist, sexist pig," and a "f---ing lunatic."</p><p>The reports about Obama's comments on Trump are likely to elicit a strong reaction from Trump.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-press-corps-biden-reporting-covid-masks-2021-05">We joined the White House press corps the day masks came off. Here's what a 'hard pass' and fewer restrictions mean for us - and our reporting.</a></em></p><p>Trump has long had an antagonistic relationship with Obama, from Trump's promotion of the birther conspiracy theory that sought to question the first Black president's citizenship to his repeated efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, Obama's signature domestic-policy legislation.</p><p>While Obama and Trump would likely never play golf together, the details of Obama's contempt toward Trump have not been widely reported.</p><p>Dovere reported that Obama was keener on Trump becoming president than GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, mostly because he thought Trump wasn't as clever as the Princeton- and Harvard Law-educated Cruz, according to The Guardian.</p><p>As Trump's presidency went on, Obama became less charitable toward his successor.</p><p>According to The Guardian, Dovere reported that Obama had told "big donors looking to squeeze a reaction out of him in exchange for the big checks they were writing to his foundation" that Trump was "a madman."</p><p>"More often: 'I didn't think it would be this bad.' Sometimes: 'I didn't think we'd have a racist, sexist pig,'" Dovere wrote, according to The Guardian.</p><p>The Guardian said Dovere described Obama as highly displeased by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/30/politics/trump-call-putin-readout-terror-attack">reports</a> that Trump had been talking with foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, without aides on the calls.</p><p>"That corrupt motherf---er," Obama reportedly said.</p>

Obama called Trump a 'corrupt motherf---er,' a 'racist, sexist pig,' and a 'f---ing lunatic,' a new book reportedly says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Rep. <keyword id="11917797" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="marjorie-taylor-greene" source="Orion">Marjorie Taylor Greene</keyword> is hounding gun-control activist <keyword id="14130597" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="david-hogg" source="Orion">David Hogg</keyword> on Twitter for a meeting.</li><li>She described herself as "someone who has also been on lockdown as a student."</li></ul><p>Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is hounding gun-control activist David Hogg on Twitter for a meeting, suggesting she and the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting survivor share an experience because of a gun-related incident at her school when she was a student in 1990.</p><p>Following a recent spate of mass shootings, the far-right Georgia conservative and gun-rights advocate, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/27/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-david-hogg-video/index.html">who has harassed Hogg in the past,</a> tweeted on Sunday that if Hogg wanted to fix the problem he would discuss "common sense solutions" with her. Hogg co-founded <keyword id="12569511" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="march-for-our-lives" source="Orion">March For Our Lives</keyword> after the 2018 shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when he was a student there. </p><p>The youth-led group is planning <a href="https://marchforourlives.com/">marches in DC and other cities </a>on June 11 after mass shootings last month that killed 10 mostly Black people in a racist rampage at a Buffalo, New York supermarket, and 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Congress is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-safety-bills-congress-tulsa-uvalde-buffalo-mass-shootings-2022-6">poised to take action this week.</a></p><p>In her tweet, Greene described herself as "someone who has also been on lockdown as a student when the only madman with a gun is another student who wants to kill people." </p><p>She appears to be citing a 1990 incident at South Forsyth County High School in Georgia, where an armed student held other students from two classrooms hostage. No one died in the incident and students in other classrooms were evacuated and bused to a nearby elementary school, according to the <a href="https://www.ajc.com/education/greene-references-gun-incident-at-her-georgia-high-school/H4IJIIOFOJFFJAIW42LX7COHWE/">Atlanta Journal Constitution</a>.</p><p>"Yes, she attended South Forsyth HS and was present at school that day, but she was not in the two classrooms that were taken hostage," Jennifer Caracciolo, the school's communications director, told Insider in an email.</p><p>Greene has <a href="https://www.ajc.com/education/greene-references-gun-incident-at-her-georgia-high-school/H4IJIIOFOJFFJAIW42LX7COHWE/">previously referred to the incident </a>as part of her call for eliminating gun-free school zones. She spoke about it again on Friday in an <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1532757173108981760?s=20&amp;t=CvNVSG3ZE-zDAJ61-BUu8g">interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News</a>, calling it "the worst thing that could have happened to any of us and it was terrifying."</p><p>"There was no adult there with a gun in our school because our schools had turned into gun-free zones," she said. "This is because of Joe Biden and the crime bill that they passed back in 1990."</p><p>The school incident <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/from-1990-hostages-fear-diminished-as-teen-discussed-troubles/OV4MB7PSZZFXPEAU7K3PNIQXJQ/">happened in September 1990</a>. The 1990 crime bill, a package of bills which then-Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware sponsored as Senate Judiciary Chairman <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/senate-bill/3266/text">was signed into law </a>two months later on November 29, 1990.</p><p>Before she was elected to Congress, Greene <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/22/marjorie-taylor-greene-parkland-sandyhook/">promoted a false conspiracy theory</a> that Parkland was staged and was caught on video following and confronting Hogg in March 2019 as he walked toward the US Capitol, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/27/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-david-hogg-video/index.html">badgering him about his positions</a> on gun safety measures and later calling him a "coward" after he walked away. </p><p>On Sunday, she went after him <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1533569805424463872">again on Twitter. </a></p><p>"I hear you &amp; your girls are funded to come to town this week to once again try to manipulate some of my gutless weak colleagues to vote for gun control that will violate our freedoms and leave Americans defenseless," she wrote to Hogg. "I don't see you on my schedule, why not?"</p><p>Greene added that "it happened at my high school too, only we had no one" and she said, "gun control laws won't fix it."</p><p>Hogg <a href="https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1533582177048346626">declined a meeting, </a>saying he's more interested in meeting "commonsense people who are looking for reasonable solutions to stop children from dying. Don't really have time to help you go viral for attacking survivors so you can fundraise."</p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1533593588281507842">He added a request</a> for donations to support the group's June 11 march, since he said Greene was trying to use him as a "fundraising opportunity."</p>

Marjorie Taylor Greene cites her high school 'lockdown' while needling David Hogg, a gun safety activist who survived the Parkland, Florida shooting

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot/MSNBC</span></p><p class="caption">Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski railed against President Donald Trump on Thursday, claiming that he is "mentally unstable" and unfit to serve. </strong></li><li><strong>This came a day after Trump promoted an unfounded conspiracy theory that Scarborough was involved in the 2001 death of an intern in his congressional office. </strong></li></ul><p><br />In a fiery "Morning Joe" segment on Thursday, MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/joe-scarborough-with-trump-what-are-republicans-and-the-cabinet-waiting-for-1106697283568">accused President Donald Trump</a> of being "mentally unstable" a day after Trump promoted an unfounded conspiracy theory that Scarborough was involved in the 2001 death of an intern in his congressional office. </p><p>The two media personalities, who used to be friendly with Trump and regularly interviewed him during the first months of his 2016 presidential campaign, called on the president's cabinet officials to stand up to him, claiming that those close to the president know he is "mentally unfit." </p><p>"We are facing a showdown with a nuclear power and you have somebody inside the White House that the New York Daily News says is mentally unfit, that people close to him say is mentally unfit, that people close to him during the campaign told me had early stages of dementia," Scarborough said. "So I'm just kind of wondering - what's the Cabinet waiting for? What are Republicans in the House and Senate - because it's never going to get more deadly serious than it is now."</p><p>Scarborough went on to call the president "completely detached from reality" and claimed that "everybody around Donald Trump knows he's not stable."</p><p>"When are we supposed to say this?" Scarborough asked. "After the first nuclear missile goes? Is that when it's proper to bring this up in polite society?" </p><p>This came a day after <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-conspiracy-joe-scarborough-killed-intern-2017-11">Trump called for Scarborough</a> - as well as MSNBC's president, Phil Griffin - to be fired, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that Scarborough is somehow implicated in the 2001 death of an intern who worked in Scarborough's Florida congressional office. </p><p>A medical examiner determined that staffer Lori Klausutis' death was an accident, caused after the 28-year-old, who had an undiagnosed heart condition, collapsed and hit her head on a desk in Scarborough's district office, causing a fatal blood clot.</p><p>During the Thursday morning segment, Brzezinski read from <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/donald-trump-madman-article-1.3665163">a Wednesday New York Daily News editorial</a>, which called Trump a "madman."</p><p>"Only those completely under his spell can deny what growing numbers of Americans have long suspected: The President of the United States is profoundly unstable. He is mad. He is by any honest layman's definition mentally unwell," she read.</p><p>Scarborough responded to Trump's tweet on Wednesday, repeating <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-is-not-well/2017/06/30/97759ee0-5d0f-11e7-9b7d-14576dc0f39d_story.html?utm_term=.9d4ee61fa49c">his claim that the president is mentally unwell</a>. Brzezinski called Trump's tweet a violation of "basic moral judgment" <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/scarborough-brzezinski-respond-to-trumps-murder-accusation.html">in a Wednesday statement</a>.</p><p>"Today the president crossed another deep and disturbing line with his attacks on Joe. The chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America advanced a false conspiracy theory to intimidate the press and cause a chilling effect on the First Amendment," Brzezinski said. "Joe and I are not intimidated. And his bizarre behavior contravenes both the Constitution and basic moral judgment."</p><p>This comes as the president has continued to publicly and privately entertain conspiracy theories, including the long-debunked claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the US. He also continues to falsely claim that undocumented immigrants helped Hillary Clinton win the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, according to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-obama-birth-certificate-2017-2017-11">The New York Times</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-suggests-access-hollywood-tape-fake-2017-11">Another Times report</a> suggested the 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape, in which the president boasted about groping women, isn't real, though Trump publicly acknowledged its authenticity during the presidential campaign.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/megyn-kelly-santa-is-white-remark-fox-news-nbc-ignition-today-controversial-remarks-2017-11">Megyn Kelly: 'I regret a lot' of the controversial stuff I've said</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Joe Scarborough goes scorched earth on Trump: 'Everybody around Donald Trump knows he's not stable'

<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Associated Press</span></p><p class="caption">North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in embrace each other after signing on a joint statement at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea, Friday, April 27, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><ul><li><strong>President Donald Trump deserves some credit for the historic summit that brought together the leaders of North and South Korea.</strong></li><li><strong>The president's erratic behavior and general unpredictability may have helped bring Kim to the table.</strong></li><li><strong>But that same unpredictability could just as easily reverse course in the future.</strong></li></ul><p>It seems like a lifetime ago. But in January of this year, President Donald Trump <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nuclear-button-north-korea-threat-2018-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">requested that someone from Kim Jong Un's "depleted and food starved regime" inform the leader</a> that Trump, too, had "a nuclear button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his," and that unlike Kim's, "my button works!"</p><p>It was hard to imagine on that day, and on any of the ones that preceded it, that Trump's predisposition toward erratic, angry outbursts might somehow lead to positive results. </p><p>But here we are, a little more than four months after this exchange, in which each leader was unsubtly threatening the other with nuclear disaster. We've progressed to a point that comes as a pleasant, welcome surprise to many foreign-policy observers. </p><p>Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, and Kim Jong Un, North Korea's supreme leader, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-south-korea-summit-moon-jae-in-kim-jong-un-2018-4">met Friday</a> in a historic summit. The news has been filled with detail: where things took place, who said what to whom, what concessions have been discussed, and more.</p><p>Less space has been allocated toward exploring the extent to which the US, and Trump, is responsible for this turn of events. </p><p>In his book, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ends-Power-H-R-Haldeman/dp/0440122392" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Ends of Power</a>," Bob Haldeman describes a conversation he had with President Richard Nixon. According to his recollections, Nixon said: "I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, 'for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry - and he has his hand on the nuclear button' and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace."</p><p>Some details are different. But swap the North Vietnamese and for the North Koreans, swap Nixon for Trump, and swap communism for nuclear weapons or "deal making," and you start to get a picture of how the president's erratic behavior might sometimes actually be an asset in foreign policy. </p><p>That said, we're at the very beginning of what will likely be a drawn out, complicated process. And we're dealing with a country that is governed by someone equally, if not more erratic, than Trump.</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/opinion/north-korea-south-korea-peace.html">Writing in The New York Times</a>, Nicholas Eberstadt, the founding director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, explained the problem.</p><p>North Korea, he wrote, "can walk away from its peace promises at any time." When that happens, "it will be able to blame whomever it wishes for this tragic result - potentially polarizing <keyword id="6358883" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="politics">politics</keyword> in South Korea, igniting tensions in Seoul's alliance with Washington, or fracturing the loose coalition of governments that rallied around sanctions against it." Until then, "Pyongyang will hold the other parties hostage to the fear that if any of its new demands aren't met, it will quit the peace process." </p><p>All this is to say that Trump has far outperformed what was expected of him in the foreign-policy arena. We should celebrate that while remaining cautiously optimistic about the results that his words and deeds may yield.</p><p>As quickly as his erratic behavior became an asset, it can become a liability. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-never-release-pet-goldfish-into-wild-2018-4">Why you should never release your pet goldfish into the wild</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

We're starting to see how Trump's erratic behavior can be an unlikely asset in the biggest moments

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>John Noonan, a national security expert who advised Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney,&#xa0;went off on Twitter on&#xa0;Wednesday, arguing that Trump's position on nuclear weapons makes him unfit for the presidency.&#xa0;<p>A foreign policy expert heard Trump question the US's long-standing policy to avoid using nuclear weapons, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/joe-scarborough-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-2016-8">MSNBC host Joe Scarborough</a>&#xa0;reported on Wednesday.&#xa0;</p><p>Trump reportedly asked about nuclear weapons three times<span>, saying at one point: 'If we have them, why can't we use them?"</span></p><p><span>Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, later declared that Scarborough's story was&#xa0;<span>"absolutely not true."</span></span></p><p><span><span>But Trump's willingness to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-cnn-debate-2015-12">embrace the idea of nuclear weapons</a>&#xa0;has long <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/experts-blast-donald-trumps-nuclear-proliferation-statements-2016-3">raised concerns</a>&#xa0;among&#xa0;national security experts. </span></span><span><span>Although Trump has said at times he is <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-missiles-nukes-button-launch-foreign-policy-213955">horrified by nuclear weapons</a>, he has also <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/03/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-europe">refused</a> to take the possibility of using them against various enemies off the table.&#xa0;</span></span></p><p><span><span>John Noonan, who advised both Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney on national security, has himself been criticized for espousing what some say are aggressive <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/443580">views on nuclear weapons</a>. The Institute for Policy Studies characterized Noonan as part of the "<a href="http://rightweb.irc-online.org/the_nuclear_posture_attack/">hawkish extreme</a>" of the Republican party.</span></span></p><p><span><span>Noonan pointed out on Twitter that if Trump is really willing to use nuclear weapons, he's disregarding over half a century of national security wisdom.&#xa0;</span></span></p><p>He&#xa0;also suggested that Trump's combative personality would make him too dangerous a figure to hold the keys to nuclear power - an attack line often used by Hillary Clinton and Democrats.&#xa0;</p><h3>Here's the full tweetstorm:</h3><p><span><span></span></span><span><span><div></div></span></span></p><p><div></div></p><p><div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p><div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p><div></div></p><p><div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>In the case of an attack, American presidents have just <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-missiles-nukes-button-launch-foreign-policy-213955">minutes</a> to decide whether to unleash nuclear power on other countries.&#xa0;</p><p><div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>Trump's proposals to torture enemies and kill their families have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-military-wouldnt-save-us-from-president-trumps-illegal-orders/2016/03/04/9ef8fd44-e0ea-11e5-846c-10191d1fc4ec_story.html">raised questions</a> about whether the military could legally refuse to follow his orders if they constitute war crimes.&#xa0;</p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>&#xa0;<div></div></p><p>&#xa0;</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/republican-defending-melania-trump-wife-speech-plagiarism-campaign-rnc-michelle-obama-2016-7">'My Little Pony': How Republicans are disputing claims that Melania Trump's RNC speech was plagiarized</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="pjc3Z0NDE61V2A-lVArlarKJVi1Rekqg" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "madman theory" and got 11 results

US intel agencies are debating whether Putin has lost mental faculties or is bluffing to unnerve the West, report says

Tom Porter

Trump's acting defense secretary tried to investigate a voter fraud conspiracy involving Italian satellites that the DOJ called 'pure insanity'

Kelsey Vlamis

QAnon supporters are celebrating after Trump publicly praised the conspiracy movement for the first time

Tom Porter

Petraeus says Trump's 'madman' approach to North Korea could be effective - until it becomes disastrous

Jeremy Berke

For Trump to force China's hand against North Korea, he may need to convince them he's a madman

Alex Lockie

Trump privately asked Obama how he got high approval ratings, book says

Sonam Sheth

Obama called Trump a 'corrupt motherf---er,' a 'racist, sexist pig,' and a 'f---ing lunatic,' a new book reportedly says

John L. Dorman

Marjorie Taylor Greene cites her high school 'lockdown' while needling David Hogg, a gun safety activist who survived the Parkland, Florida shooting

Nicole Gaudiano

Joe Scarborough goes scorched earth on Trump: 'Everybody around Donald Trump knows he's not stable'

Eliza Relman

We're starting to see how Trump's erratic behavior can be an unlikely asset in the biggest moments

Daniella Greenbaum

A national security expert went on a Twitter rant against Trump's nuclear weapons position

Caroline Simon

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