Who Carries the Nuclear Suitcase?

I am surprised that with all the speculation about war with North Korea, not a single journalist has raised the issue of the nuclear suitcase.  Every once in a while, someone will mention nervousness in Washington at the fact that an uninformed and unpredictable president could rashly take the country to war, but we have never seen anyone walking behind the President when he gets on Air Force I, carrying the suitcase containing the codes that enable him to launch a nuclear attack.  No day goes by without intense speculation about Donald Trump’s strategy toward North Korea: he claims he will never let our enemies know what is going to happen, keeping the rest of us in the dark as well.

After the President declared publicly that we are seeing ‘the calm before the storm’, leaving the media to guess whether he was referring to an attack on North Korea or the firing of his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson — as if the two could be put on the same level, the senator who first endorsed him, Bob Corker, declared that the White House has tuned into an adult day care center. Yet the media still has not mentioned the nuclear codes to which the president has — at least theoretically — sole access.

Whether or not by choice, the President is surrounded by generals, but we are not told which of them — the Secretary of Dense James Mattis or the National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster — may actually have relieved the president of his nuclear responsibility.  

If it’s Stephen Miller, the one remaining Alt-Right firebrand who crafts eloquent speeches for the President, we would not know either.  The important news today is that a powerful Hollywood producer was fired from the company he founded for making women lie on his couch before giving them a job.

President Ronald Reagan with officer carrying nuclear suitcase