The potential for nuclear war poses a more immediate threat to the world than climate change, former US President Donald Trump claimed over the weekend in a TV interview.
Speaking on Fox & Friends, Trump referred to President Joe Biden’s recent speech, in which he said global warming posed the “greatest existential threat to our country.”
“They say that the sea levels will rise over the next 400 years by one eighth of an inch, which means basically we have a little more beachfront property. This is the big threat,” Trump said in the interview on Fox News.
“In the meantime we got these maniacs with nuclear weapons that can do damage which I won’t even talk to you about. There has never been anything like it, the power of weaponry today. It will be obliteration. And that’s your real threat,” the former president said, without clarifying which “maniacs” he was referring to.
Trump has previously pledged that if he wins the November 5 election, he will seek to quickly end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and is “committed to restoring peace and stability and to stopping Joe Biden’s march to World War Three.”
Speaking at the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Washington DC last month, Trump proclaimed himself “the only one” who can stop a global war, and warned that such a conflict would be “like no other” because of the “massive weaponry” involved.
Meanwhile, the White House has stressed that Joe Biden is not looking for a direct confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. Last week, Washington officially authorized Kiev to use US-supplied weapons for limited strikes deep inside Russian territory.
“We’ve been concerned about escalation since the very beginning of this war. And those concerns remain valid,” White House National security spokesman John Kirby told ABC News. “The president has said he does not want to be responsible for starting World War III. We’re not looking for a conflict with Russia, another nuclear power.”
Moscow has repeatedly stated that deliveries of Western weapons to Ukraine have only served to prolong the conflict, and increase the risk of a dangerous escalation.