Trump talks the talk on national security — but Americans are much less safe from real threats under him

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Thus, the United States seeks to put Julian Assange in jail for 170 years for threatening national security when he publishes documents that the government itself had failed to protect. He called the border issue “the biggest crisis in the history of the country.” Would our national security be any greater if Julian Assange were not put in prison; if citizen journalists were allowed to challenge whether they were properly targeted for killing; if Guantanamo Bay detainees were tried in a US court or released; if migrants were accorded asylum rights guaranteed under international law? Is it, for example, a national security threat if terrorist groups get access to small nuclear devices that can be smuggled into the United States or Europe from declared or undeclared nuclear powers? A policy brief from Harvard University’s Managing the Atom Project published in April argued that the “budget request for programs to reduce the dangers of nuclear theft and terrorism is too small to implement the ambitious approach that is needed.” Donald Trump pledges to keep Guantanamo Bay open at the State of the Union Meanwhile, the Trump administration has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal, increasing the timing and likelihood of a destabilizing regional power having nuclear capability.