Trump in 2015: "My uncle used to tell me about nuclear before nuclear was nuclear."

[highplainsdem]

Trump biographer Tim O'Brien, in Bloomberg today:

Uncle John Taught Trump About Fire and Fury
When the president reflects on nuclear weapons, he likes to remind listeners that he's the nephew of an MIT physicist.
by Timothy L. O'Brien
August 9, 2017, 3:35 PM EDT


https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/view/articles/2017-08-09/uncle-john-taught-trump-about-fire-and-fury

John Trump, who died in 1985 when he was 77, was a well-regarded engineer and nuclear physicist. He was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for almost 40 years, beginning in 1936. His brother Fred, the president's wealthy father, paid John's way through college and graduate school, and John ultimately had a number of nifty accomplishments around food preservation, medical-device sterilization, radiation treatments for cancer and the military uses of radar.

-snip-

John had no experience developing nuclear weapons or nuclear policy, but that has never stopped his nephew from invoking his uncle's name when he weighs in on those subjects.

So a brief tour of the president's reminiscences about Uncle John offers a window onto the philosophy, if that's what it is, of the man in possession of the U.S. nuclear codes.

Take, for example, a small portion of Trump's campaign speech on July 19, 2016, when he free-associated about the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran:

Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my life credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought?

Possible takeaways: 1) The president needs therapy; 2) Uncle John was smart because he had good genes and Trump is smart because he shares those genes; 3) "Nuclear is powerful"; 4) "Who would have thought?"

-snip-

Shortly after Trump announced his presidential bid in 2015, he told the Boston Globe that his uncle was "brilliant" and evidence that the Trump family had "very good genetics."

"My uncle used to tell me about nuclear before nuclear was nuclear," Trump told the Globe. "He would tell me, 'There are things that are happening that could be potentially so bad for the world in terms of weaponry.'"

-snip-

[leftstreet]

1. I need to find the reset button on my brain

Those painful word salads of his practically give me hives

Guess I don't have the right 'genes'

[Pachamama]

2. Me too....I am sitting here dumbfounded that these words actually came out of a stream of conscious

....thought and that person is the President of the United States.....

Scary

[davekriss]

5. Very scary

[highplainsdem]

6. It's also scary that his propagandists Bannon and Miller call Trump a "great orator."

Perfect example of Goebbels's "big lie."

[bdamomma]

11. scary his brain

is so scrambled, we have to remove this idiot out of office. He is threat to us and the world.

[CatMor]

3. The Atomic Bomb was used in 1945

Trump was born in 1946 so how could his uncle be telling him about "nuclear before nuclear was nuclear" when it was already around before he was born?

[smirkymonkey]

7. I know! The man is such a flaming idiot!

I'm sorry, but his uncle must have been switched at birth or something because there is NO WAY Trump share the genes of an MIT Nuclear Physicist & Engineer.

[lpbk2713]

4. GW Bush used to tell me about nookular.

And I always laughed at him.

[highplainsdem]

9. Did you ever imagine we'd have a president who'd make W seem intelligent & thoughtful by comparison?

[lpbk2713]

10. I thought the second iteration of Dumbya was impossible.

But the voters outdid themselves with this asshole.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

8. Thanks.

Just reading that made my eyes bleed.

[highplainsdem]

12. LOL - know the feeling.