Trump denies asking about nuking hurricanes, but reporter says conversation is 'memorialized'

Hurricane Florence. — (Image credit: NOAA via Getty Images)

Axios' Jonathan Swan is standing by his Sunday evening report that said` President Trump, on multiple occasions during the first year of his presidency, suggested using nuclear bombs to break up hurricanes before they made landfall in the United States.

Swan, who reported the story alongside Margaret Talev, wrote that Trump asked about whether the idea was plausible during two different meetings (although he reportedly only used the word "nuclear" once.) Trump caught wind of the story on Monday morning and dismissed it as fake news on Twitter.

But Swan defended his reporting, clarifying that one of the conversations he detailed was "memorialized."

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As for the idea itself? It's a bad one, scientists say, but not a product of Trump's imagination. A government scientist during the Eisenhower era reportedly made the notion popular, and it's resurfaced every now and then since. Read more at Axios.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.