the ploughshares fund has circulated a public petition urging president obama to place restraints onhe incoming president's ability to launch a nuclear attack. last week, president-elect trump alarmed nuclear weapons experts s when he raised the prospect of a new global arms race on twitter saying he would increase the size of the u.s. nuclear arsenal. trump's tweet read -- "the united states must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." the united states and russia account for 93% of the world's nuclear arsenal. following trump's tweet, his spokesman sean spicer tried to clarify trump's position in an interview with cnn. he was speaking to alisyn camerota. >> he is going to do what it takes to protect this country. if another country or countries want to threaten our safety or sovereignty, he's going to do what is safe. >> but he is not waiting until another country threatens us -- >> but he is making it very clear that other countries and other companies -- you've seen with others, he is when a make it c

now, joining me now is president of the ploughshares that argues for disarmament. for those of you who don't follow nuclear proliferation all the time, generally how different is what donald trump saying here different from what presidents have done in the cold war post world war ii era? >> night and day. in 24 days donald trump will take control of the american nuclear arsenal. this is by far the most destructive, the most capable death machine on the planet. he will be able to launch at his order one or 1,000 nuclear war heads almost as easily as he now tweets. no one can reprimand him. no one can pull those missiles back once launched, there is no self-destruct mechanism. it's extremely important that the president understand what's at stake here. every word that he says and now every tweet that he makes matters. so when he had those words last week, it's not clear that he understood what he meant. his handlers certainly didn't understand what he meant. nor did our adversaries nor did our alli. this is why still a week later we're still talking about this, why i

university who's written extensively about nuclear weapons, and joseph cirincione, the president of the ploughshareson-profit organization that advocates for disarmament. he, too, has written widely on the subject. gentlemen, thank you both for joining us. mr. cirincione, let me start with you, when you hear or read the president-elect saying that the united states must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability and then say this morning let it be an arms race, what's your reaction? >> stunned. an ill-considered, disrespectful and dangerous series of statements. this would upend decades of republican and democratic policy that ever since ronald reagan has been reducing nuclear arsenals both in the united states and russia and around the world, stopping other countries from getting nuclear weapons. by using the word "expand" he says he wants to grow the arsenal or capabilities. nobody is against keeping a strong nuclear deterrent. if that's all he said, we wouldn't be having this debate. president obama put in train a trillion-dollar program to replace every single nuclear weapon we have ov

russian consultant and global fellow for the woodrow wilson center, and joe sorencioni, president of ploughshares fund. barbara, the initial statement was that donald trump, the president-elect, wants to greatly strengthen and expand the nuclear capability of the united states. that could mean a few things. it could mean modernize which is within the framework of things that have been discussed over the last several years. however, he seemed to go beyond that this morning when he said let it be an arms race. that would be a change, a big change in u.s. policy. >> it would, john. indeed, undoing decades of u.s. national security policy dating back to ronald reagan. now, trump likes to cloak himself, he's done it before, in the reagan mantle of so-called peace through strength. but remember, it was ronald reagan that sat down at the nuclear negotiating table with gorbachev all those years ago. mr. spicer, the spokesman this morning talking about this is all about showing that donald trump will be a strong president. okay. you put that out there on the table, he's going to be a strong president, but