Senior Policy Director Alexandra Bell spoke to CNN to fact-check President Trump’s claim that his administration oversaw a sweeping renovation to the U.S.’ nuclear arsenal.
Alexandra Bell, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, said that, with the exception of a hypothetical top-secret development she doesn’t know about, “everything is the same” in the deployed arsenal “as it was in January 2017” — aside from reductions the US made to fulfill its obligations under the New START treaty with Russia.
While “the Trump administration has certainly requested and received increased funding for nuclear modernization,” Bell said, “this is a trajectory we have been on since 2010” — and “he hasn’t really changed anything yet.”
“Budgets clearly demonstrate that we have spent enormous of money on nuclear modernization over the past decade,” said Bell, who served in the State Department under Obama from 2010 to 2017. Read more