Why it would be a bad idea for the Trump administration to conduct a “rapid” nuclear test

The career of Brandon Williams, President Trump’s pick to run the National Nuclear Security Administration, does not give many clues about his priorities for the agency that safeguards the US nuclear arsenal. He served as a naval officer, co-founded a venture capital firm, and farmed truffles in upstate New York before spending two years in Congress as a Republican representative. (He lost his reelection bid in November 2024.) Like many of Trump’s nominees, he has had little direct interaction or experience with the federal agency he aspires to run. But for the Trump team, that may be the appeal of Williams. The search for an agency leader required a candidate willing to restart the US nuclear testing program, according to former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Terry Wallace: “That more or less disqualifies any recent director of any nuclear weapons lab.”