Small Batch | The "Nuclear Testing" Announcement

Summary

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Truth in the Barrel – Small Batch: The "Nuclear Testing" Announcement

Hosts: Amy McGrath, Denver Riggleman
Guest: Joel Rubin (National Security Expert, former U.S. State Department official)
Date: October 30, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this urgent “Small Batch” episode, hosts Amy McGrath and (absent for this episode) Denver Riggleman respond to breaking news: Donald Trump has announced the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons testing after a 30-year moratorium. National security expert Joel Rubin joins Amy to discuss the dangers, global implications, legal issues, and confusion surrounding this move—particularly the inadequacy of Trump’s stated reasoning and the bypassing of Congressional oversight.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Shock and Context of the Nuclear Testing Announcement

• Announcement Details: The United States, per a directive from Trump, will resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time since 1992, ending a long-standing voluntary test ban.
• Initial Reactions:
  • Amy McGrath: “My first thought was, wtf? … Oh, boy, this is terribly dangerous and unnecessary.” (01:46)
  • Joel Rubin: “It was a political move, not a strategic one. And that's very dangerous when we're talking about the world's worst weapons.” (02:34)

2. History and Impact of the Test Ban

• Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT):

  • The U.S. led efforts for global nuclear test bans post-Cold War; has signed, but not ratified, the CTBT.
  • Other nuclear states adhered to the norm, with only rogue states (e.g., North Korea) conducting tests in recent decades.
  • Amy: “We led the fight to get that treaty in place … We don’t want any nuclear weapons detonated on Earth.” (04:15)

• Risks of Resuming Testing:

  • Could reignite a nuclear arms race with Russia, China, and possibly new nuclear states.
  • Undermines decades of non-proliferation leadership and strategic stability.
  • “If we lift that off and we start testing … this is where it gets really dangerous and uncontrolled.” (Joel Rubin, 07:17)

3. Clarifying Misconceptions: Testing, Delivery Systems, and “Keeping Pace”

• Misunderstanding in Administration Justifications:

  • Trump administration claims the need to “keep pace” with Russia and China, suggesting those states are actively testing nuclear weapons.
  • Joel and Amy clarify: these countries, like the U.S., test delivery systems (missiles, etc.), not actual warheads.
  • Amy: “No, they're not. They're not testing nuclear weapons. They might be testing delivery systems … It's not the same thing as testing a nuclear weapon itself.” (07:44)
  • Joel unpacks the confusion between nuclear-powered systems and nuclear-armed missiles, noting even U.S. submarines use nuclear power but aren't inherently nuclear-armed.

• Superiority and Safety of U.S. Arsenal:

  • U.S. has invested hundreds of billions in maintaining, modernizing, and monitoring arsenal reliability—no need for detonations.
  • Computer modeling and the work of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) ensure arsenal safety.
  • Joel: “This idea that we don’t know is just garbage to be put in straight talk. It’s a complete falsehood.” (05:51)

4. Strategic Balance and Global Security

• Numbers and Treaties:
  • U.S. and Russia together hold 90% of global nuclear weapons; China's arsenal is a fraction in comparison.
  • The New START Treaty between the U.S. and Russia maintains arsenal caps, expiring soon; no similar agreement with China.
  • Reopening testing would dramatically destabilize arms control efforts worldwide.
  • Joel: “We have enough to blow up the world 50 times over. … This idea that we have to keep up when China has a tenth what we have is also a complete misstatement of what the reality is.” (11:52)

5. Congressional Oversight and Executive Overreach

• Alarm at Lack of Checks:

  • House is absent, Senate is not being briefed on either Caribbean military operations or nuclear policy shifts.
  • Echoes of constitutional crisis: the President is acting unilaterally, violating norms and possibly laws requiring Congressional buy-in for military actions.
  • Amy: “We don’t have a king here. You don't unilaterally just start a war; that's not in our Constitution, that's not in our history, shouldn't happen.” (15:25)

• Dangers of Partisanship in National Security:

  • Recent precedent-breaking briefings limited to just one party in the Senate—a practice sharply criticized as "unacceptable, unconscionable, unamerican and deeply offensive to Congress." (Joel, 14:44)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Joel Rubin [02:34]: “It was a political move, not a strategic one. And that's very dangerous when we're talking about the world's worst weapons.”
• Amy McGrath [04:15]: “What's striking to me is we led the fight to get that treaty in place. The rest of the world agreed with us … we don't want any nuclear weapons detonated on Earth.”
• Joel Rubin [05:51]: “This idea that we don't know is just garbage to be put in straight talk. It's a complete falsehood.”
• Joel Rubin [07:17]: “What this test ban treaty has done is essentially capped the potential for new countries to become nuclear states … If we lift that off and we start testing … this is where it gets really dangerous and uncontrolled.”
• Amy McGrath [12:28]: “If we detonate nuclear weapons, any in any sort of test, that would be a problem for the world, it would be a major provocation to Russia and China. It is damaging … to global security right now.”
• Joel Rubin [14:44]: “We would never do a partisan brief. It’s unacceptable, unconscionable, unamerican and deeply offensive to Congress. … It’s deeply dangerous to our national security to play partisan games.”
• Amy McGrath [15:25]: “We don’t have a king here. You don't unilaterally just start a war, that's not in our Constitution, that's not in our history, shouldn't happen.”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:07] – Amy opens on breaking news and introduces guest Joel Rubin
• [01:46] – Amy and Joel’s initial shock and discussion of political vs. strategic motivations
• [02:34] – The risk of politics in nuclear policy; consequences for global security
• [04:15] – U.S. leadership in nuclear test bans and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
• [05:11] – Technical explanation: U.S. arsenal safety, NNSA, and why testing is unnecessary
• [07:44] – Clarifying the difference between missile testing and nuclear warhead testing
• [08:40] – Confusion over “nuclear-powered” vs. “nuclear-armed” systems
• [10:15] – The limits of “keeping pace” and the strategic realities of global arsenals
• [12:28] – Testing as provocation; the case for restraint
• [13:16] – Congressional absence, lack of oversight on nuclear and Caribbean operations
• [14:44] – Dangers of partisan briefings and bypassing congressional norms
• [15:25] – The constitutional necessity of Congressional approval for acts of war
• [16:31] – Parallels with the Iraq War; need for public and congressional buy-in
• [17:18] – Amy wraps up, thanks Joel Rubin

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Conclusion

This episode delivers an urgent call for public awareness and Congressional vigilance in response to the dramatic policy shift on nuclear weapons testing. Joel Rubin’s insights clarify the complex technical, legal, and strategic fallacies underpinning the Trump administration’s move while underscoring the fundamental dangers—both immediate and long-term—of returning to nuclear testing. The discussion closes with a bipartisan appeal to restore checks and balances in U.S. national security decision-making.

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Transcript

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[Amy McGrath]

Welcome everyone, to Truth in the Barrel Small Batch episode. I'm Amy McGrath. So we all woke up this morning to find out that Donald Trump has directed that the United States resume nuclear weapon testing again after 30 years of I think we found this out via tweet last night. Talking about how dangerous this could be was something I really wanted to do today. And so we brought in Joel Rubin, a longtime national security expert with many years in the U.S. state Department. Welcome, Joel.

[Joel Rubin]

Great to be with you, Amy. I appreciate it.

[Amy McGrath]

When I woke up and found out this morning that Donald Trump said said he was going to start nuclear weapon testing again, my first thought was, wtf? Okay, from the background that I have, and I know you have, my first thought is, oh, boy, this is terribly dangerous and unnecessary. But I wanted to hear from you for our listeners. We haven't conducted we, the United States, haven't conducted a nuclear weapon test since 1992, and we stopped at the end of the Cold War. All right, so this is kind of a big deal. What's going on here? Joel?

[Joel Rubin]

Well, Amy, I have good news. Your instincts are 120% right. WTF. I would add an O as well on that one. I was actually doing an interview last night covering the president's trip and his meeting with President Xi of China. And then they announced this. And I stunned. Why would we do this? And I'll sum it up in a very simple phrase. It was a political move, not a strategic one. And that's very dangerous when we're talking about the world's worst weapons. All we need is several of these weapons to go off. And we could accelerate the potential for not just nuclear crisis, but sort of a nuclear win. Incredibly dangerous to play around with these weapons. And that's why we haven't tested in over 30 years. That's why there's been a universal test ban known as the Comprehensive Test Ban, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the CTBT that we're signatory to, but we haven't ratified. That's why the only countries that test are the scoff laws like North Korea and Pakistan did about 20, 27 years ago. And it's, it's really an astounding move and it creates risk not only in terms of damage from testing, but also to restarting a nuclear arms race, which is the last thing we need right now in the midst of all the global uncertainty that we're facing. I know that you're incredibly aware of this makes no sense. It's just a political move. Donald Trump thumping his chest perhaps. And it really just makes everybody less safe today than we were yesterday.

[Amy McGrath]

Yeah. And you talked about the ctbt, which is a treaty that banned this testing at the end of the Cold War. And what's striking to me is we led the fight to get that treaty in place. The rest of the world agreed with us that this is for decades, that this is a good thing. We should not be testing these weapons on Earth. We don't want any nuclear weapons detonated on Earth. Right. And so for Donald Trump to come in here and say, ah, we're going to go test again. And then apparently the reason for this is that the administration and the President says we need to keep pace with China and Russia because they're testing. So I want you to talk about that because there's a lot of confusion about cruise missiles and nuclear powered stuff versus testing an actual warhead.

[Joel Rubin]

So let me geek out a little bit with you if I can. And for the audience here, I served for three years as the policy director for the Plowshares Fund, which is a leading nuclear non proliferation foundation in the United States. I served in the Energy Department and I also served at the State Department professionally for a number of years. And so what I'm going to talk about relates to all those, those parts, which is that testing and the test ban, if you think about it, not only did we lead the diplomacy to make the world a safer place with less testing, but it also was a very strategic move because what we did was we locke in the testing and the knowledge related to that testing to ensure that we were having an effective and a safe arsenal and ever since 1992, we basically created a new nuclear security entity called the nnsa, the National Nuclear Security Administration, four letter acronym, not easy, but that's housed at the Energy Department, in the civilian component of the Energy Department, not in the military side of the Pentagon. And in order to continually evaluate, monitor and review our nuclear arsenal, which has received hundreds of billions of dollars over the years to maintain the health and safety of the stockpile so that it functions. So this idea that we don't know is just garbage to be put in straight talk. It's a complete falsehood. Now you add to that that we have all this knowledge. Other countries that want to acquire nuclear weapons, this is why I said it's not strategic. Other countries that want to acquire nuclear weapons or want to see what they have, they don't have the capabilities that we have for the modeling, the computer modeling that is required to observe the arsenal. So think of Russia, think of Pakistan, North Korea, they had to physically test because they don't have the ability to, to review the stockpile otherwise. So I'll finish with this. What this test ban treaty has done is essentially capped the potential for new countries to become nuclear states. So if we lift that off and we start testing, and then Russia, we have to test now too, because we can't look weak. And then China says we have to test now too. There are nine countries that we know of, they have nuclear weapons arsenals, but over 40 have nuclear technology. What about those 30 in that delta? What are they going to start to do? And this is where it gets really dangerous and uncontrolled and we lose strategic stability in the nuclear weapons and in the nuclear arsenal that we have in other countries have. And that's why this is such dangerous idea.

[Amy McGrath]

Yeah, and I also think there's confusion when I hear people talk about this because you know, the President has come and said, well, China and Russia are testing. No, no, they're not. They're not testing nuclear weapons. They might be testing delivery systems to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. We also test these, you know, things like missiles. It's not the same thing as testing a nuclear weapon itself, which would require detonation of a nuclear warhead. And so there's a lot of confusion there. I think there's also confusion on, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think there's also confusion on, for example, Russia has been testing this nuclear powered cruise missile. So nuclear power is different than a nuclear tipped cruise missile. Right. Can you, can you talk?

[Joel Rubin]

We have we have nuclear powered subs as an example. We have submarines that traverse the planet that are powered by nuclear. Nuclear fuel. Nuclear nuclear energy. But that does not mean they are nuclear weapons. It's the same dynamic. There are three ways to deliver a nuclear weapon. You can drop it from a plane, you can shoot it through an intercontinental ballistic missile, or you can shoot it from a submarine. Those are delivery systems. That's what Trump is. He's getting confused. Or he sees the word nuclear and decides that nuclear sub, a nuclear delivery system is the same as a nuclear bomb. It's not. One thing that's very important to also Amy, to understand is that 90% of the world's nuclear weapons are in our hands, plus Russia. So our two countries have nuclear weapons in an overwhelming level compared to the rest of the world. And there is a nuclear treaty between us and Russia called the New START Treaty that has maintained a capital level that is set to expire in a year or so that can be renewed. And then separately, we don't have any real agreements with China. What I would have loved to have seen yesterday is President Trump go to China and say, I want to negotiate with the Chinese and make sure that their nuclear arsenal doesn't get bigger. Instead, he's mixing up ideas, mixing up systems, and articulating a new policy that is based upon falsehoods and disinformation. And so that's what's very concerning about this moment as well.

[Amy McGrath]

Does he think this is going to get the Chinese to stop building more nuclear weapons?

[Joel Rubin]

Maybe he thinks he's going to scare them somehow, but that is not.

[Amy McGrath]

And the reasoning behind it, saying that we need to keep pace with, with China and Russia, we do need to keep pace with other technologies like hypersonics and AI and drones, but not in nuclear weap. We already have more than enough weapons than we need, enough to like, blow up the earth several times over. And as you said earlier, we spend a ton of money and resources making the arsenal that we already have very reliable. I mean, that's what strategic command does. And it's.

[Joel Rubin]

That's right.

[Amy McGrath]

We've had strong deterrent for, I don't know, since 1945.

[Joel Rubin]

That's right. And you know, there's something very important what you just said about having this arsenal and having it safe. And it is strong. It is deterrent. You know, as part of the New start negotiations in 2009, 2010, when we negotiated with Russia and came to an agreement, I think it was in 2011, it was ratified to have capped Levels of nuclear, strategic nuclear warheads. When we did that in order to get it through the Senate, because it had to get ratified by the Senate, 2/3 of the senators, that meant a dozen or so Republicans had to support a treaty that President Obama negotiated with Russia. The deal was that massive amounts of money would be invested in the nuclear infrastructure through the NNSA that I referenced earlier. So we've been pouring tens of billions and the Republicans won that. We've been pouring tens of billions of dollars for 15 plus years now into this infrastructure to maintain a safe and secure stockpile. And just numerically We've got over 5,000 nuclear warheads. There are some estimates that nuclear winter could occur with less than 100 discharge. I mean, we have enough to blow up the world 50 times over. Obviously one is too many in terms of use only to have been used in history of the world. But this idea that we have to keep up when China has a tenth, what we have is, is also a complete misstatement of what the reality is.

[Amy McGrath]

I just feel like this is crazy right now. And if we detonate nuclear weapons, any in any sort of test, that would be a problem for the world, it would be a major provocation to Russia and China. It is damaging to not only our own national security interests, but also to global security right now. And I'm wondering where Congress is. I wanted to get your take on one thing and then I know you gotta go, which is the fact that right now with regards to these strikes in the Caribbean, the Democratic members of the Senate are not being briefed on any of these operations and how unprecedented that is. And what are your concerns there?

[Joel Rubin]

Well, on the first part of your question, where is Congress? The House is on vacation, not in. Not showing up for work, has barely shown up since July. So they're not playing a role and they don't want to do any legitimate oversight. And. But with regards to the question of the Senate, I mean this is deeply concerning that the President is now essentially preemptively launching a stealth war into the Caribbean. And without having any congressional authorization or justification based upon fear of imminent threat and using the War Powers act to justify it, he has no legal basis for launching these attacks. There's a moral argument about counter narcotics. There are other ways to deal with that. But what he has to do is he has to get Congress on board. And look, you went through the wars, you know, the war period in the Middle east and we were at war with terrorist organizations. There was an authorization for the use of military force that undergirded our operations. You know the head of SOUTHCOM of Southern Command, the admiral quit about 10 days ago. He just quit less than a year into his job. You don't quit that job a year in unless you're very concerned of either A being sent to the Hague or B having to follow just base illegal orders. And so now the briefing to your question. I've worked in legislative affairs as well for a time in the Obama administration where we were responsible. I was a senior official working with the House of Representatives. We were responsible for conducting briefings amongst many other items. We would never do a partisan brief. It's unacceptable, unconscionable, unameric and deeply offensive to Congress. You only brief all of Congress, you don't pick sides. And so what the Republicans are doing, what the President's team is doing, is essentially saying hey Democrats, you don't matter, you're not relevant. And that's not how it's going to work. If they want anything from Congress, the senators are going to have ability to stop actions in the Democratic caucus. But it's deeply dangerous to our national security to play partisan games. And unfortunately that's what's happening right now.

[Amy McGrath]

It's not only dangerous from the, from the partisan side, but it's also dangerous from a balance of power side because the President has a responsibility in matters of national security to bring Congress on board. If you want to go to war against Venezuela or Colombia or something like that, you have to go make your case to the American people. And you do that through Congress. We don't have a king here. You don't unilaterally just start a war that's not in our Constitution, that's not in our history, shouldn't happen. And even in cases in America's past there hasn't been the President himself just snapping a finger and making it happen. They've always gone to Congress, they've always tried to get buy in and right now they're not even briefing half of Congress on some of these operations. And as it pertains to this nuclear testing, I really worry about that too because the administration has a responsibility to talk to Congress here and get their approval.

[Joel Rubin]

It does, it's a must. One thing I wanted to add is even the war in Iraq when we invaded, the predicate domestically from a policy perspective was that there was an authorization for that invasion provided by the Congress. It has to be done. The American people have to be bought in. The American people are spending the blood and the treasure for our national security and the test ban unilateralism of restarting testing is just such a dangerous episode. Congress has to weigh in. Congress has been appropriating the money. Congress cannot be on vacation or sitting it out because they're afraid of something coming up if they reconvene. No, they have to put on the record that this must have hearings now and be approved before anything goes forward.

[Amy McGrath]

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Joel, for speaking with us about this. This is sort of breaking news and I think it's really important to take some time and talk about it because this is a really big deal.

[Joel Rubin]

Thanks, Amy. It's a pleasure.

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