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."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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.
-
Five key changes from Rachel Reeves’ make-or-break budgetThe Explainer The chancellor is relying on a ‘smorgasbord’ of targeted revenue raisers to keep MPs, markets and voters onside
-
Prisoner 951: ‘illuminating’ Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe dramaThe Week Recommends 'Harrowing' tale of prison ordeal and an ‘unbreakable’ bond between husband and wife
-
Sudoku medium: November 26, 2025The daily medium sudoku puzzle from The Week
-
Judge halts Trump’s DC Guard deploymentSpeed Read The Trump administration has ‘infringed upon the District’s right to govern itself,’ the judge ruled
-
Trump accuses Democrats of sedition meriting ‘death’Speed Read The president called for Democratic lawmakers to be arrested for urging the military to refuse illegal orders
-
Court strikes down Texas GOP gerrymanderSpeed Read The Texas congressional map ordered by Trump is likely an illegal racial gerrymander, the court ruled
-
Trump defends Saudi prince, shrugs off Khashoggi murderSpeed Read The president rebuked an ABC News reporter for asking Mohammed bin Salman about the death of a Washington Post journalist at the Saudi Consulate in 2018
-
Congress passes bill to force release of Epstein filesSpeed Read The Justice Department will release all files from its Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation
-
Trump says he will sell F-35 jets to Saudi ArabiaSpeed Read The president plans to make several deals with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week
-
Judge blasts ‘profound’ errors in Comey caseSpeed Read ‘Government misconduct’ may necessitate dismissing the charges against the former FBI director altogether
-
Ecuador rejects push to allow US military basesSpeed Read Voters rejected a repeal of a constitutional ban on US and other foreign military bases in the country
