Welcome to Pushback. I'm Erin Mate. For all of the hoopla surrounding Donald Trump and Russia,

there has been very little focus on Trump's actual policies toward Russia. This is probably because

paying attention to Trump's Russia policies would undermine the hoopla and the very fashionable narrative that Trump does Russia's bidding.

The reality is that Trump has been a Russia hawk, and nowhere is his policy more dangerous and more worthy of attention than when it comes to nuclear weapons.

Two years ago, this month, Trump released a nuclear posture review that CNN described

at the time as the Pentagon's, quote, toughest line yet against Russia's resurgent nuclear

forces."

One year later, Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the INF, a Cold War era treaty that limited a large

class of nuclear weapons. Trump has also signaled that he might not renew Newstart, the last

remaining treaty imposing limits on the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. Now, Trump is escalating

the arms race that these treaties sought to avoid.

Just recently, the Pentagon confirmed that it had deployed for the first time a submarine

armed with a low-yield nuclear weapon, the W76-2.

Then Trump released a budget that revealed plans to create a brand new submarine-launched

nuclear warhead, the W93.

The proposal was a part of a proposed 19% increase to $19.8 billion for the National Nuclear

Security Administration, which maintains the nuclear stockpile and develops new nuclear

warheads. Trump's budget for this nuclear agency has increased 50% since his first year in office.

The Trump administration currently has no special envoy to oversee nuclear talks with Moscow.

And all of this recently led the Bulletin of Atomic

scientists to move its doomsday clock 100 seconds before midnight, the closest it's been since

1953. Under Trump, the bulletin noted, quote, U.S.-Russia cooperation on arms control and

...