As the government shutdown surges toward becoming the longest in U.S. history, Senate Democrats are condemning President Donald Trump’s Wednesday evening declaration that his administration will resume nuclear weapons testing.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday that he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” arguing that Russia and China were conducting their own tests and that America must match their efforts. The president stated that the U.S. already possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, noting that this, and that the modernization of the weapons, had occurred during his first term.
Democratic Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen issued an emotional rebuke arguing that nuclear testing could possibly bring radioactive “contamination” beyond the desert.
“Trump’s going to start nuclear testing. Explosive nuclear testing. What happens in Nevada ain’t gonna’ stay there,” Rosen told reporters on Thursday after criticizing Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “The ground, the air, the water, all across this country, places like Utah, Nebraska, Idaho, keep going. Because the rain falls everywhere, the wind blows everywhere. And that contamination won’t stay isolated.”
Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy pilot, said the U.S. has no need to test our nuclear weapons, and claimed the idea “benefits the Chinese.”
“We can model this stuff — we have enough data from hundreds, maybe up to a thousand tests,” Kelly told reporters. “This benefits the Chinese … we know our systems are reliable. If they start testing again, they could build greater reliability into their strategic forces, all legs of it.”
Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal tied the announcement to Vladimir Putin’s latest missile tests, arguing that Trump’s rhetoric signals weakness, not deterrence.
“Putin is once again testing us. Donald Trump has shown weakness in the face of the murderous assault in Ukraine, and Putin is testing delivery systems,” Blumenthal told reporters Thursday. “We’ve announced a test of the nuclear warheads. There’s an asymmetry. But the move by Putin simply reflects his apparent feeling that he can continue testing and stalling and stonewalling and playing and even mocking the United States.”
Rosen, Kelly and Blumenthal have consistently joined the vast majority of the Senate Democratic Caucus in voting against measures to reopen the government 13 times.
Republican North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said he didn’t believe the president was calling for literal detonations.
“I think that was a deterrent rhetoric,” Cramer told reporters on Thursday. “I don’t imagine he was talking about above-ground or even underground detonations at this point. I’m comfortable with why he did it and why he said it.”
“I don’t know that he called for a resumption of testing,” Cramer continued. “He said he can match our enemy.”
Trump’s directive came just minutes before a much-touted summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, billed as a trade-focused meeting between the world’s two largest economies.
When asked whether Cramer felt that Trump’s directive was a strategy going into the meeting, Cramer replied, “It may have been, and if it was, I’d say good job.”
China, despite having the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal among the nine nuclear-armed states, according to a 2025 report, has not conducted a nuclear test since 1996. Russia meanwhile has not conducted a nuclear test since 1990.
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