Trump once insisted US wouldn’t ‘be second in line’ to press nuclear button

Then-Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello was stunned by what he heard then-President Donald Trump say in 2017 as they toured storm damage from Hurricane Maria, which killed thousands of people and inflicted major damage on the island’s infrastructure.

“If nuclear war happens, we won’t be second in line pressing the button,” Trump reportedly mused during a helicopter tour of the devastation.

The revelation was made in Rossello’s new memoir, The Reformer’s Dilemma, which recounts Trump’s trip to the island in the aftermath of Maria. Rossello said he was shocked by the admission — and Trump’s talk of nuclear war as Puerto Rico was in the midst of crisis.

“‘Nature has a way of coming back,’ said the president. ‘Well, it does until it does not. Who knows with nuclear warfare what will happen…’” Trump said, according to an excerpt of Rossello’s memoir obtained by The Hill.

“And then, he said the one thing that made me more concerned than anything else in the entire visit. ‘But I tell you what…’ He paused for effect. ‘If nuclear war happens, we won’t be second in line pressing the button.’”

“This statement floored me. I could not believe what I was hearing. It was surreal. Was he really talking about total annihilation as we flew over the ravaged sights of the island?” Rossello writes.

Concerns that Trump could start a nuclear conflict increased when he intensified his rhetoric towards North Korea in 2018, writing: “North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

In January of this year, Trump