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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday called President Trump’s move to restart nuclear weapons testing “acts of a weak person” and embarrassing.
Speaking with NBC News’s Kristin Welker, Newsom said “it’s performative” on Trump’s part to restart the weapons testing, behavior that Newsom compared with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He also pointed out that the Department of Energy handles nuclear weapons testing, contradicting the president’s directive that the Pentagon should oversee it.
“This is weakness masquerading in strength,” Newsom said. “This is classic Trump and Trumpism. This guy is historically weak, and these are acts of a weak person that is trying to appear strong.”
Private conversations between the two about nuclear weapons “calmed” Newsom, he said. But the governor added that Trump, by restarting testing and praising his recent trade negotiations with China’s President Xi Jinping, was “trying to overcompensate to be a tough guy.”
“Then again, trust but verify that he doesn’t begin to make some errant mistakes and we walk down a path of no return,” Newsom said. “It scares the hell out of me to start talking about these kind of things. But hopefully cooler heads will prevail, because again, he doesn’t even know what he said and what he was talking about on what the basis of his own administration has said he said and talking about.”
On Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the Defense Department would work with the Energy Department on the renewed testing. Trump announced the decision on Wednesday.
“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” Trump wrote on his social platform Truth Social. “This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years.”
Russia had recently claimed it had a successful new nuclear capable cruise missile, known as the Burevestnik, tested last week. Trump condemned it, and it drew international concern.
The United States stopped nuclear weapons testing in 1992 following the downfall of the Soviet Union, according to The Associated Press. Four years later, the U.S. signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
Newsom joined House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in condemning Trump’s directive. Jeffries called the move “a massive breach of international treaties” and said Trump was “divorced from reality.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) supported the decision, referring to it as a “deterrent.”
“The commander in chief wants us to be fully prepared,” Johnson told reporters Thursday morning. “We are the last great superpower on the earth. China intends to be a near peer-to-peer advisory to us. But in order to maintain peace around the world, you have to show strength, and that’s what the president believes in. That’s what he’s demonstrated over and over.”
