Senate to explore president's unchecked nuclear authority
Here's a question rarely raised before  Donald Trump  ran for the White House: If  the president  ordered a pre-emptive nuclear strike  could anyone stop  him ?
As Bruce Blair  a former nuclear missile launch officer and expert on nuclear command and control  has put it  "The protocol for ordering the use of nuclear weapons endows every president with civilization-ending power."  Trump    he  wrote in a Washington Post column last summer  "has unchecked authority to order a preventive nuclear strike against any nation  he  wants with a single verbal direction to the Pentagon war room."
Or  as then-Vice President Dick Cheney explained in December 2008   the president  "could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen.  He  doesn't have to check with anybody.  He  doesn't have to call the Congress.  He  doesn't have to check with the courts."
And the world has changed even more in the decade since  with North Korea posing a bigger and more immediate nuclear threat than had seemed possible. The nature of the U.S. political world has changed  too  and  Trump 's opponents â even within  his  own party â question whether  he  has too much power over nuclear weapons.
These realities will converge Tuesday in a Senate hearing room where the Foreign Relations Committee â headed by one of  Trump 's strongest Republican critics  Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee â will hear testimony from a former commander of the Pentagon's nuclear war fighting command and other witnesses. The topic: "Authority to order the use of nuclear weapons."
Here's a question rarely raised before   [TGT] ran for the White House: If  the president  ordered a pre-emptive nuclear strike  could anyone stop  him ?
As Bruce Blair  a former nuclear missile launch officer and expert on nuclear command and control  has put it  "The protocol for ordering the use of nuclear weapons endows every president with civilization-ending power."   [TGT]     he  wrote in a Washington Post column last summer  "has unchecked authority to order a preventive nuclear strike against any nation  he  wants with a single verbal direction to the Pentagon war room."
Or  as then-Vice President Dick Cheney explained in December 2008   the president  "could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen.  He  doesn't have to check with anybody.  He  doesn't have to call the Congress.  He  doesn't have to check with the courts."
And the world has changed even more in the decade since  with North Korea posing a bigger and more immediate nuclear threat than had seemed possible. The nature of the U.S. political world has changed  too  and  Trump 's opponents â even within  his  own party â question whether  he  has too much power over nuclear weapons.
These realities will converge Tuesday in a Senate hearing room where the Foreign Relations Committee â headed by one of  Trump 's strongest Republican critics  Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee â will hear testimony from a former commander of the Pentagon's nuclear war fighting command and other witnesses. The topic: "Authority to order the use of nuclear weapons."