Walter Mondale said people are "right to be scared" about President Donald Trump's ability to launch nuclear weapons, the former vice president said in an interview with the Minnesota Post.
The nation's 42nd VP under Jimmy Carter is no fan of Trump's, referring to him as a "crazy" and "very dangerous" president," adding that he "has an appalling record of using lies," and saying he thinks Trump "might just quit and go home."
But top of mind for Mondale, 89, is the nukes, he told Minnesota Post, sharing an opinion mentioned last week by former director of national intelligence James Clapper.
"You're right to be scared. You’ve gotta be scared. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be scared," Mondale told MinnPost.
Mondale told the Minnesota Post that when former President Richard Nixon started "to lose it, some of the key national security people in his administration organized a deal to block him from doing anything crazy," he said.
"I don’t have any idea whether any of those conversations are going now, but my guess is, if he keeps this up, security officials in his administration might have an informal understanding about getting together if there’s a crisis and talk things over," Mondale told the Minnesota Post. "If you’ve got a crazy president, I’ve got to assume that they will do whatever they can to slow things down."
Mondale told the Post that Nixon, nevertheless, "was a brilliant man," something Trump is not.
"You can’t find it, because it’s not there. I follow this guy as closely as I can and nothing rings true. He’s got some people there, mostly generals, who are maybe stable and strong that seem to be providing some stability but, boy, the rest of it is just a mess," Mondale said of Trump.
"I don’t know the man, so I shouldn’t pretend to know what he might do. But he’s been quoted as saying this job is so tough that people are asking him why he puts up with it. He’s been quoted as saying that the White house is a dump. And he looks like a very lonesome, unsettled man," Mondale said.
"I’m not predicting it, but what might happen is he’ll just quit and go home."
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