Vox: Trump paused a call with Putin to make an aide explain a nuclear arms treaty. By Suzanne Cordeiro and Dimitar Dilkoff (AFP).

“Three things stick out about this report, presuming it’s accurate[…]. The first is that Trump still clearly does not know basic facts about American foreign policy, like the name of a major treaty — and that this somehow leaked to the press from one of his top advisers, the only people in the room for the Putin call.

The second is that the president seems willing to make major policy changes anyway. Trump had referenced New START in an October presidential debate, though he called it “start up“ and incorrectly suggested that it limited American nuclear warhead construction without similarly capping Russia’s. (The deal actually caps each country’s number of deployed nuclear warheads at 1,550.)
[…]
Finally, the comments seem to contradict stuff Trump has said recently about nuclear weapons. Just days before his inauguration, Trump said in an interview that he hoped to work with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin to reduce both countries’ nuclear arsenals.”

Also:

“In August, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough recounted a story an unnamed foreign policy expert told him about Trump and nukes. In it, Trump expresses confusion as to why the US doesn’t use its nukes.

“Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why can’t we use them,” Scarborough said.”

This makes me very afraid.