‘Today’ Hosts Hope Someone Locks Trump in Room Before He Launches Nukes
Matt Lauer is serious.
10.19.2017
25
Matt Lauer came out guns a’blazin’ on Thursday’s Today show. He is concerned that President Trump is going to get us too close to nuclear war and will need someone to either “tackle” him or “lock him in a room” so he can’t get near the nuke codes.
"I feel weird asking you this, but you've read the same stories I've read," Lauer said to former CIA Director John Brennan. "You know the key players around the president in [Jim] Mattis, [H.R.] McMaster, and John Kelly. Stories are going around out there that if the president inches closer to some kind of a nuclear confrontation with North Korea, that those guys are going to do something. They're going to lock him in a room. They're going to tackle him."
Brennan chuckled, and Lauer recoiled: "You're smiling, but these are the stories that are out there, and they will prevent him from carrying out any action that would cause that. Is that all nonsense?"
Brennan explained that the president has unilateral authority over military operations, but said military leaders understand the gravity of the situation and would act as “governors on the president’s instincts to continue to try to intimidate and bully.”
Lauer accused Brennan of not answering the question directly.
“Would they take some action to prevent the president from carrying out an order?" Lauer pressed.
"The president has unilateral authority to be able to authorize military action," Brennan responded. "That order goes through Secretary Mattis. Secretary Mattis can try to talk him out of it, disagree with it, carry it out, or not."
Lauer, desperately seeking a resounding “Yes!” to his query, quoted Brennan who previously stated that “it is the obligation of some executive officials to refuse to carry out some of those orders that are inconsistent with what this country is all about.”
Brennan clarified that his comment should be taken in the context it was delivered, which was aimed at former FBI Director James Comey and reminded a forgetful Lauer that, “We are a country of laws.”
Sensing Lauer was losing the argument, co-host Savannah Guthrie jumped in to try and salvage the remaining time, asking Brennan, “If you had been in your old job and you had been given an order that you thought was dangerous to this country, would you have flouted an order?”
Brennan supposed he would’ve quit if the order was to, say, bring back water boarding.
Guthrie pressed, “Do you think Mattis, and Kelly, and Dunford, and McMaster would be willing to do the same if circumstances warranted?”
Brennan gave the only obvious answer: it depends on the circumstances. Then he added that all those men are “patriots” and “understand the gravity of the situation.” However, Brennan doesn’t believe Trump does.
We’re sure Lauer and Guthrie were relieved to hear that.
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