Trump’s New Plan: Make Mushroom Clouds Great Again

Published on: Sat, 07 Feb 2026 20:24:33 GMT
Original Story: Opinion | Trump’s New Start on Nuclear Weapons – The Wall Street Journal

The WSJ Editorial Board Finally Finds a War It Can’t Wait to Fund

Ah, the Wall Street Journal opinion section. The only place on earth where a potential global apocalypse is treated with the same dry, detached excitement as a mid-cap merger or a capital gains tax cut. Their latest fan-fiction involves Donald Trump’s “New Start” on nuclear weapons. Because if there’s one thing the world was missing, it’s a septuagenarian with the impulse control of a caffeinated toddler holding a bigger, shinier set of keys to the end of civilization.

The Journal’s brain trust seems to think that the current nuclear triad is simply too “vintage.” It’s so 20th century to merely have the power to incinerate the planet ten times over. According to the “adults in the room,” we need a nuclear glow-up. They’re framing Trump’s desire to restart the arms race as a savvy geopolitical move, rather than what it actually is: a vanity project for a man who measures success by how much “kaboom” he can buy with someone else’s tax dollars.

Let’s be clear about what’s happening here. Under the guise of the broader “Project 2025” agenda—which is basically a wishlist for people who find “The Handmaid’s Tale” too progressive—the plan is to spend trillions on brand-new warheads. We’re going to bankrupt the social safety net just so we can build a missile that looks slightly more aerodynamic while it’s ending human history. It’s “The Art of the Deal,” but the deal is with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and they aren’t taking a haircut on the interest rates.

And who better to oversee this delicate balance of global terror than the man who once famously asked if we could just “nuke a hurricane”? The WSJ wants us to believe that Trump 2.0 will be a master of strategic deterrence. In reality, we’re looking at a scenario where the “nuclear football” is probably going to be misplaced at a Mar-a-Lago buffet line between the shrimp cocktail and the classified documents stored in the bathroom. But hey, at least the defense contractors will have a great Q4, right?

So, strap in, folks. While we’re all worrying about affordable housing or the fact that the oceans are literally boiling, the “thinkers” over at the Journal are busy salivating over a new era of atomic brinkmanship. Because nothing says “peace through strength” quite like a president who treats the nuclear button like a “Request Diet Coke” buzzer. If we’re going out, at least we’ll go out knowing the WSJ gave the fireball a glowing review before the ink—and the rest of us—vaporized.

Related Coverage from Other News Outlets:

• Binance Gives Trump Family’s Crypto Firm a Leg Up (via The New York Times)
• My Question: What more would they need to see? (via cnn.com)
• Trump lawyers aim to deport five-year-old boy after judge ordered his release (via The Guardian)