Sorry, Republicans, Hillary Did NOT Leak Information About Nuclear Weapons During Debate
False! Hillary Clinton did NOT inadvertently leak classified information about the nuclear weapons program during last night’s debate. Social media erupted following the exchange outlined below, in which Clinton mentioned that the time from call to fire nuclear weapons was approximately four minutes.
CLINTON: I — I find it ironic that he’s raising nuclear weapons. This is a person who has been very cavalier, even casual about the use of nuclear weapons. He’s…
TRUMP: Wrong.
CLINTON: … advocated more countries getting them, Japan, Korea, even Saudi Arabia. He said, well, if we have them, why don’t we use them, which I think is terrifying … But here’s the deal. The bottom line on nuclear weapons is that when the president gives the order, it must be followed. There’s about four minutes between the order being given and the people responsible for launching nuclear weapons to do so. And that’s why 10 people who have had that awesome responsibility have come out and, in an unprecedented way, said they would not trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes or to have his finger on the nuclear button.
Conservatives everywhere lost their minds, complaining that Hillary Clinton had given away “classified” information. Not just your ordinary Twitter idiots either – elected officials were sharing this ridiculous allegation:
But of course, this turns out to be widely available information. The four-minute timeframe, in addition to being very difficult to verify or prove, is something that has already been openly discussed; it is not new information stemming from Clinton. An article on August 5th in Foreign Policy openly stated the information with the headline, “Our Nuclear Procedures Are Crazier Than Trump: U.S. presidents are currently given a four-minute window to decide whether or not to initiate an irreversible apocalypse. Sad!”
The “four minutes” dates back to threats of an attack from the Cold War, but veers slightly in meaning. These four minutes are described as the time it takes to first detect an incoming nuclear missile and the missiles which will hit their target. Most articles on the topic have the timeframe as four to twelve minutes.
Indeed, there is no way Hillary let top secret information slip in front of an audience in the millions. As if further proof was needed, nuclear security expert Joe Cirincione weighed in on Twitter, denying the accusations against Clinton. His tweets read as follows:
Most people do not realize we have ~900 nuclear
