Bob Woodward is coming out with a new book. It seems to be chock full of the type of anecdotes that can only be gathered by a reporter so stealthy and accomplished that he managed to sneak into the hospital room of dying former CIA Director Bill Casey and get from him a confession that Reagan knew about the diversion of funds to kill godless commies aid the Contras in Nicaragua.

One of the claims, covered in the greatest detail by the decidedly left-wing and not very competent War Zone at TheDrive blog, is that Trump divulged the existence of a top-secret nuclear weapon to Woodward, who then, as any dutiful patriot would do, reported on it in his book. This is the quote:

I have built a nuclear – a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about,” Trump told Woodward. “We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody – what we have is incredible.

The leftist trope of President Trump casually revealing top-secret information is one the leftwing media has been trying to solidify in the national conscious since before he was sworn into office. It has been alleged over and over, and disproven over and over, but, somehow, the left never tires of flogging the story. And so, this particular toss-off line, one that should surprise no one, caused a sudden flurry of activity.

There is so much in this Post piece on the Woodward book that it’s buried in like the 30th graph that Trump accidentally revealed a new U.S. nuclear weapons system

— Sam Stein (@samstein) September 9, 2020

Trump told Bob Woodward he built a secret nuclear weapons system 👀 https://t.co/itBbxyS8NV pic.twitter.com/eU1PHcQYpB

— Adam Taylor (@mradamtaylor) September 9, 2020

Trump bragged to a reporter that he built a secret new nuclear weapon, according to bombshell book https://t.co/H2IiHkX0KV

— Military and Defense Insider (@MilDefInsider) September 9, 2020

What’s worse—Trump disclosing to Woodward he knew about how bad #COVID19 was, or disclosing publicly that US has a secret new nuclear weapons system that was classified?! #TrumpKnew https://t.co/UweTETui7Q

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) September 9, 2020

There is more in that vein, but the classic is this:

During their interviews, Trump boasts to Woodward, “I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before.” Woodward writes other sources confirmed the information, without providing further details, but expressed surprise Trump disclosed it.

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) September 9, 2020

How does that even work? Did Woodward call up a random weapons designer, say at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and get him to confirm that there is, indeed, a nuclear weapon that the general public is unaware of?

There are two equally probable resolutions to this. The first is that President Trump was blowing smoke. There isn’t a new weapon but it amuses him to give the Russians and Chinese something to chase after. The second possibility is that the weapon was unknown during the course of the interview but it is now known to us:

The Pentagon disclosed the W76-2 deployment on Feb 4. So that would well be after Woodward talked to Trump. Hard to say unless he specifies the date of the convo in the book. https://t.co/7zOCEOTKqd

— Aaron Mehta (@AaronMehta) September 9, 2020

The bottom line here is that the President disclosing that the US has a new nuclear weapon at some stage of development is hardly top-secret, or even secret. Nothing in his statement tells anything specific about what the weapon is or does. The entire kerfuffle in utter nonsense but, then again, the same can be said of 90% of the media coverage of the Trump administration.