Michael Douglas hopes Obama has ‘something strong to say’ in Hiroshima

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Actor Michael Douglas said Thursday that President Obama has been a “disappointment” on moving toward a nuclear-free world and should consider his legacy during his historic trip to Hiroshima, Japan, later this month.

Speaking to reporters at the United Nations in Geneva, Douglas, 71, a so-called U.N. messenger of peace  recalled Obama’s 2009 speech in Prague vowing that the United States would take “concrete steps” toward nuclear-free world, according to a report from Reuters.

{mosads}”I think we could say he’s been a disappointment because there’s not been follow through, and I do hope now for his legacy as he begins to leave office, that he’s going to have something strong to say at Hiroshima,” Douglas said.

Obama is slated to become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima on May 27 during a trip to Vietnam and Japan, the White House announced earlier this week. He’ll meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and speak at a park memorializing victims of the world’s first nuclear bombing, according to White House officials.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Tuesday Obama has no plans to apologize for the U.S. dropping the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 at the end of World War II but instead plans to “send a much more forward-looking signal about his ambition for realizing the goals of a planet without nuclear weapons.”

Douglas said that the nuclear threat is greater today than during the Cold War, citing “this kind of crazy tension” between the U.S. and Russia, reportedly adding, “I don’t quite see that all of this posturing is helping anybody.”
 
The actor also said he was a friend of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has floated replacing U.S. soldiers in Japan and South Korea with nuclear weapons. Douglas indicated he wasn’t confident the U.S. would make strides toward nuclear disarmament under Trump, according to Reuters.
 

“I guess one of his strengths, or weaknesses depending how you look at it, is his unpredictability,” he said.

Tags Donald Trump Hiroshima Japan Nuclear proliferation United Nations

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