WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is boasting that he has a bigger and more powerful “nuclear button” than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un does.
The president’s Tuesday evening tweet came in response to Kim’s New Year’s address, in which he repeated fiery nuclear threats against the United States and said he had a “nuclear button” on his office desk.
Trump mocked that assertion, writing, “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
Trump doesn’t actually have a physical nuclear button.
The process for launching a nuclear strike is secret and complex and involves the use of a nuclear “football” carried by military officers.