President Donald Trump has floated the idea of using nuclear bombs to weaken hurricanes before they reach U.S. land, according to an Axios report on Sunday, prompting many on social media to note that it sounds a whole lot like a plotline from the “Sharknado” sci-fi comedy film series. .
“Our president wants to implement policy ideas he got from watching ‘Sharknado 3,’ this is not a drill,” Susan Simpson wrote. And she’s right.
On Friday, an unnamed individual who attended a White House briefing about hurricanes told Axios that the president asked during the meeting, “Why don’t we nuke them?”
“They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?” the source told Axios, paraphrasing the POTUS’ remarks.
“You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting. People were astonished,” the source told Axios. “After the meeting ended, we thought, ‘What the f—? What do we do with this?’”
According to Axios, Trump floated the idea in a second conversation with an unnamed senior administration official which was recorded in a 2017 National Security Council memo.
A senior administration official told Axios, “We don’t comment on private discussions that the president may or may not have had with his national security team.”
Nonetheless, reaction on social media to the president’s “blow ’em up” suggestion — which needless to say has no basis in scientific fact — was pretty much what you’d expect.
Here are just a few of the comments that had #Sharknado trending.
SHARKNADO is trending. I wonder why ???? pic.twitter.com/r6T0POucbf
— Tzurr Charles (@TzurrCharles) August 26, 2019
https://twitter.com/OpWolverines/status/1165780368835743744
Please stop airing “Sharknado” on Air Force One
Signed,
People of Earth https://t.co/IvZUIiosmh
— TrivWorks (@TrivWorks) August 26, 2019
I always expected the Trump era would mean “Veep” became a documentary, but I never expected it would mean that for “Sharknado,” too. https://t.co/dt7eRIl1lS
— Joel S. (@jh_swanson) August 26, 2019
Trump is "Making Sharknado Great Again" #MSGA
— Its not rigged (@unuthryear) August 26, 2019
https://twitter.com/Bumble6671/status/1165805977062580225
Trump and “Sharknado” have come up in the same conversation once before. According to David Latt, the founder of The Asylum, the studio behind the “Sharknado” franchise, in 2015, Trump was asked to play the president of the United States in “Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!” Although a contract was drawn and sent to his then attorney Michael Cohen, Trump didn’t immediately sign it because he was considering running for president. The production company instead cast Mark Cuban in the role, which didn’t land well with Trump. According to Latt, Trump threatened to sue them and “shut the entire show down!”
Omg, what if he ran for president for real because he didn't get the part of president in Sharknado?
THIS IS ALL SHARKNADO'S FAULT https://t.co/OO8n34OhuA
— Erik Bo Berik (@writearterik) August 26, 2019
And if you’re at all curious as to if nuking a hurricane would actually work in breaking it up, the question has been raised many times as far back as the Eisenhower administration. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. government agency that predicts changes in weather and the oceans, wrote in an online fact: “Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.”
When asked for comment about Trump’s remarks, a senior administration official said, “We don’t comment on private discussions that the president may or may not have had with his national security team.”