ABC’s Joy Behar just claimed President Trump is basically selling Saudi Arabia the right to nuke America for cash, turning a complex nuclear energy deal into a wild doomsday story aimed at scaring viewers, not informing them.
Story Snapshot
- Joy Behar told “The View” audience that Trump’s Saudi nuclear deal will let a “rogue nation” build a bomb and threaten the United States.
- The agreement in question is a long-term **civilian nuclear energy** partnership, not an open license for Saudi Arabia to build nuclear weapons.
- Experts do warn the deal is weaker on safeguards than past U.S. agreements, especially on uranium enrichment and inspections.
- Media figures like Behar are turning technical nonproliferation debates into scare-talk about Trump “selling nukes to terrorists” for money.
Joy Behar’s Claim: Trump Will Let Saudis Nuke America for Cash
On Thursday’s episode of “The View,” co-host Joy Behar launched into President Trump over his new civil nuclear energy deal with Saudi Arabia. She said Trump “starts a war in Iran because they’re going to get a nuclear weapon” and now is “making a deal with the Saudi Arabians that will allow them to produce a nuclear weapon,” calling Saudi Arabia a “rogue nation.” Behar went further, suggesting Trump is enabling this because the Saudis will give “tens of billions of dollars” and that this money is “what is behind this.”
Behar’s rhetoric has escalated over time when she talks about Trump and nuclear issues. Past interviews show her saying Trump having access to nuclear codes “keeps me up at night,” framing him as reckless and dangerous. In this latest segment, she also echoed social media chatter accusing Trump of “selling nuclear bombs to terrorists and pocketing the money,” language that jumps far beyond what any reporting on the agreement actually says. Her comments fit a pattern where entertainment talk shows turn complex national security questions into simple alarmist storylines aimed at Trump supporters.
What the U.S.–Saudi Nuclear Deal Actually Does
Separate from Behar’s claims, the Trump administration has indeed approved a major civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia worth tens of billions of dollars. This thirty-year pact is designed to give American companies a leading role in building the kingdom’s nuclear infrastructure, including reactors and related facilities. Under the agreement’s reported terms, Saudi Arabia could eventually be allowed to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium on its own territory, after a joint United States–Saudi study looks at the economics of making fuel domestically.
Critics point out that the deal does not include the traditional “gold standard” language that bans enrichment and reprocessing outright. It also reportedly omits the “Additional Protocol,” a stronger inspection system that gives the International Atomic Energy Agency more power to conduct snap inspections at undeclared sites. These missing guardrails have raised concern among arms control experts, who say they could leave Saudi Arabia closer to a “nuclear option” down the road if the kingdom ever chose to break its promises. But even these critics focus on long-term proliferation risk, not a direct plan to hand Saudi Arabia nuclear weapons.
Expert Concerns Versus Talk-Show Alarmism
Arms control analysts and foreign policy experts are raising real questions about this agreement, but they speak in different terms than Behar. Their main worry is that allowing domestic uranium enrichment without the Additional Protocol sets a bad precedent for global nonproliferation, making it easier for other countries to ask for similar deals. They argue that fuel-cycle steps like enrichment and reprocessing are the same industrial processes used in building nuclear weapons, and so they want strict limits and heavy monitoring.
Media commentary and talk shows often translate that technical debate into simpler slogans that grab attention. In this case, the side of the debate focused on safeguards and enrichment is being rewritten on television as Trump “letting Saudi Arabia get nukes” or “selling nukes to terrorists,” even though the public deal is framed as a civilian energy program. That framing blurs the line between legitimate concerns about bad precedents and unfounded claims that the White House is directly arming a foreign government with nuclear weapons. It turns a real policy dispute over how tight the rules should be into a cartoon image of Trump trading away America’s safety for Saudi money.
What Conservatives Should Watch: Guardrails and Oversight
For constitutional conservatives, the core issue is not Joy Behar’s latest rant but whether the federal government is weakening important guardrails on nuclear technology. Many Republicans and national security hawks have long insisted that any civil nuclear deal must bar enrichment, require strict inspections, and ensure Congress keeps real oversight. The Saudi agreement tests those principles by pushing a flexible approach that may let enrichment happen later and leaning more on executive action than on clear, binding limits.
President Trump and his team argue that partnering with Saudi Arabia on nuclear energy keeps American companies in the lead, strengthens ties with a key energy ally, and can still be done safely. Critics answer that if domestic enrichment and weaker inspections become normal, it could erode hard-won nonproliferation standards built over decades. For readers who care about limited government, national sovereignty, and real security, the task is to separate serious policy concerns from celebrity fear-mongering and to demand that any deal protect American safety without surrendering control to global bureaucrats or foreign cash.
Sources:
thegatewaypundit.com, fox59.com, reuters.com, armscontrol.org
