CBS This Morning on Thursday hyped the updating of the metaphorical Doomsday Clock, wondering if Donald Trump will make the threat of annihilation more likely. Talking to a representative of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, correspondent Kris Van Cleave lectured, “With the Doomsday Clock starting the day at three minutes to midnight, it's President Trump's finger on the button.”

He added, “Prior to taking office, [Trump] called for the U.S. to strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.” Foreboding doom, the journalist wondered, “Does the election of a new president who might be more hawkish, is that grounds for moving the clock?”

The short answer from this group is yes. Lawrence M. Krauss and David Titley wrote in the New York Times on Thursday:

Making matters worse, the United States now has a president who has promised to impede progress on both of those fronts. Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.

... But Mr. Trump’s statements and actions have been unsettling. He has made ill-considered comments about expanding and even deploying the American nuclear arsenal. He has expressed disbelief in the scientific consensus on global warming. He has shown a troubling propensity to discount or reject expert advice related to international security. And his nominees to head the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Management and the Budget have disputed or questioned climate change.

Admitting that the clock is “not a physical clock,” Van Cleave described the agenda of the organization: “... It is an effort by a group of very smart people to express how close they think we are to ending life on the planet as we know it, factoring in nuclear weapons and climate change.”

In 1984, when Reagan was reelected, the Bulletin moved the clock closer to midnight and theoretical annihilation.

To his credit, Van Cleave included a clip of the Washington Times’s Bill Gertz deriding, “In a lot of ways, the Doomsday Clock is being used by the liberal left to try to promote its agenda for nuclear disarmament, for greater efforts to control climate change and other elements.”

A transcript of the segment is below:

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