WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement on Friday after President Trump announced his Nuclear Posture Review. Unlike previous administrations, which focused on downsizing and withdrawing the deployment of nuclear forces, President Trump is dangerously reversing course, lowering the bar for the use of nuclear weapons and calling for a more diverse set of nuclear weapons.

“The policy laid out in the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review reverses decades of bipartisan efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear war. I have always supported a strong and safe nuclear deterrent, but this new policy expands the range of options and lowers the bar for a president to use a nuclear weapon. I’m afraid today we took a scary step backward from decades of nuclear disarmament and deterrent,” said Murphy.

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons, Murphy said, “We are concerned that the president is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic, that he might order a nuclear-weapons strike that is wildly out of step with US national-security interests." Murphy also introduced a bill prohibiting President Trump from starting a preemptive war against North Korea, absent an imminent threat or without express authorization from Congress.

Murphy also the author of “Rethinking the Battlefield,” a comprehensive proposal containing specific recommendations to dramatically increase the United States’ non-military footprint abroad by nearly doubling the U.S. foreign affairs budget – including the State Department and USAID – with an emphasis on funding for international development, additional foreign service officers, anti-corruption efforts, countering propaganda, crisis response, and humanitarian relief.  

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