Donald Trump is promising to build “the greatest dome ever” over the United States to protect the country from a “hostile source” like a missile attack.
Trump floated the idea of a dome at his rally in Newton, Iowa on Saturday.
“We want to protect our country,” Trump said in a clip highlighted by Mediaite. “And, you know, those domes are starting to work. I didn’t like it when Ronald Reagan suggested it because we didn’t have the technology. We do have the technology now, and we’re going to build a giant dome over our country to protect us from a hostile source. And I think it’s a great thing, and it’s going to all be made in the United States. And that’s something that I consider productive.”
“You know, when I watch our guys operate those things, it’s unbelievable. Missile coming in, missile coming in. These geniuses sit down. Most of them are, you know, they’re from MIT. But they sit down, bing bing bing bing, boom, ph-sheee. It’s gone,” Trump continued. “It’s amazing. I think we could use, do you like that? I mean, isn’t that better than giving other countries billions of dollars? Billions. We’re going to get billions of dollars out of the countries and so they can build a dome, but we don’t have a dome ourselves. We’re going to have the greatest dome ever.”
This was not the first time the former president vowed to build a dome over the country if he wins re-election.
Last year, he said he would build an “impenetrable dome” “just as in Israel” to protect the country from nuclear attacks in World War III.
“America must have an impenetrable dome to protect our people,” Trump said.
Israel’s Iron Dome was designed to intercept incoming short-range rockets and artillery from landing in civilian areas.
But, a defense expert told Insider that such a dome would not be as effective in the US considering the country’s size. Israel is less than 9,000 square miles, while the US is 3.7 million square miles.
“No missile defense system is impenetrable,” Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the CSIS told the outlet. “It’s about how you use your missile defenses in coordination with other systems.”
And even then it is still not impenetrable.
