In recent weeks he has left interviewers slack-jawed with amazement as he throws out his thoughts on how he would behave as president. In Libya, for example, he would have intervened only if America could keep its oil afterwards. “In the old days,” he reminisced, “when you have a war and you win, that nation is yours.”
You think such a man could not be president? Stifle that disbelief! An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll at the beginning of this month suggested otherwise. When Republican and Republican-leaning primary voters were asked whom they would favour as a presidential nominee, Mr Trump scored 17%, sharing second place with Mike Huckabee, ahead of Sarah Palin and not impossibly far behind Mitt Romney, the front-runner, who was favoured by 21%. Since then his numbers have risen. A poll published on April 14th by Public Policy Polling put Mr Trump in the lead, with 26% to Mr Huckabee’s 17%.
Would it be unfair to attribute Mr Trump’s sudden popularity among Republicans to his sudden conversion to “birtherism”? There are certainly votes to be scooped up that way. More than a third of Republican voters do not believe that Mr Obama was born in America, and most conservative politicians are a little more restrained on the subject. A few, such as Michele Bachmann, try to have it both ways, saying on the one hand that they will accept the president’s word that he was born in Hawaii, while still implying on the other that there is room for doubt. But most steer clear of this canard for fear of looking foolish. (For the record, nobody needs to rely on Mr Obama’s word: the birth certificate has been posted online for all to see, and his birth was announced, at the time, in a local newspaper.)
Here, perhaps, is one secret of Mr Trump’s success so far. Though it is obvious that he is no fool, he has no fear of saying foolish things. People are used to it. Indeed, he seems impervious to criticism of almost any kind except of his remarkable hairstyle (or, the unkind aver, his hairpiece). At public meetings or in television interviews he brushes off boos, taunts and evidence with a supreme insouciance. He has little to lose by flirting with politics, and, when you think about it, rather a lot to gain.
No matter how he made his claimed billions, a part of his fortune depends now on his celebrity. Hence the appeal of another shot at politics. Outrageousness begets attention, being well-known helps you to run for president, and threatening to run for president makes you more famous still. As in the case of Mrs Palin, a whole sub-branch of psephology is now dedicated to figuring out whether Mr Trump is “serious” about running or merely burnishing his brand.
Now re-engage your disbelief. Polls taken this far before a primary campaign are notoriously useless. Mr Trump’s sudden good showing may say more about the weakness of the rest of the present Republican field than his own strengths. Though he has deep pockets, spending a fortune is not decisive in small states that take their caucuses and primaries seriously, such as all-important Iowa and New Hampshire. And trying to outflank them, like Rudy Giuliani in 2008, has proved a weak strategy.
Once serious Republicans take a closer look at Mr Trump, they are liable to be unimpressed. Like his party affiliations (he has in his time been a Democrat and a member of the tiny Reform Party as well as a Republican), his policy positions have meandered all over the place. In a book he wrote in 2000 while angling for the Reform Party nomination, he praised Canada’s single-payer health-care system. This is anathema to most Republican voters, who think Obamacare radical enough. In short, for all his undoubted entertainment value, there is virtually no chance of Mr Trump becoming president. Thank goodness.
In Washington, nuclear energy was a rare issue on which the Obama administration and congressional Republicans agreed. President George W. Bush established an $18.5 billion loan guarantee program to help build new plants. President Barack Obama wants to raise that to $54.5 billion. Obama has also included nuclear power in his plan for a clean-energy standard.
原子力エネルギーは、ワシントンではオバマ政権と議会の意見が一致する数少ない問題。
Nuclear power generation emits no carbon dioxide, a damaging greenhouse gas. And unlike wind or solar, nuclear reactors produce huge amounts of power, uninterrupted, for months. The 104 commercial reactors in the U.S. supply about 20 percent of the nation's electricity.
二酸化炭素を出さない。
But only two of nearly three dozen nuclear plants that were proposed in the middle of the last decade remain on track to be built. Low electricity prices and the huge expense of building new plants have contributed to the delay.
One of the Americans responding to the emergency is Julia Nesheiwat. She's a State Department official who was already in Japan working on nuclear issues. She served in Washington as deputy chief of staff to the director of national intelligence. In Tokyo, she's been on the Fukushima disaster from the start.
"We're providing the full resources of the United States government, everything we've got?" Pelley asked.
"Yes. Absolutely," Nesheiwat said.
"Our best people are on this?" Pelley asked.
"Yes they are," she said. "Working non-stop around the clock in each of the operations centers."
米国政府は、持ちうる全てのリソースを提供しているし、ベストの人材を派遣しているのですね。
イエス。そして24時間働いています。
Nesheiwat told Pelley the U.S. is working side by side with the Japanese, but that this was not the case in the beginning.
今は日本人達と一緒に作業しているが、始めはそうじゃ無かった。
An American team of top experts arrived shortly after the disaster but they were largely stuck at the U.S. Embassy. The Japanese didn't think they needed the help. But by last Tuesday the emergency was out of control and the U.S. gave the Japanese an ominous private warning.
Asked what the U.S. meant by that, she told Pelley, "That means they could very well lose their lives."
命を落とすかも知れないということです。
"An official with the U.S. government told the Japanese that your people are going to have to die to save that plant, unless you let us help you?" Pelley asked.
At one point during the week, the hazard was so great the Japanese took all but about 70 workers out of the plant.
70人を残して原発から作業員を退避させるほどひどい状況で、
Their problem is water: the systems that keep the radioactive fuel rods cool failed. The rods are partially melting, releasing radiation. And it's not just the reactors - there are also used fuel rods, essentially nuclear waste, stored in pools nearby. They're also losing water.
American experts fear one of these pools is already dry. Nesheiwat told "60 Minutes" the danger is multiplied because the reactors are so close to each other.
"That is a grave concern at this time. If there is an explosion, if there is a meltdown, a fire, it can absolutely affect the neighboring plants," she told Pelley.
Asked what that would mean, she said, "Goodness, I don't even want to think what that could mean. That's just something that we would have to really plan for it at the greatest scale. And we're hoping and praying that that's not the case."
All last week, the U.S. said the crisis was more grave than the Japanese apparently believed. And so far, the U.S. experts have been right. Last Wednesday, the American Embassy began a voluntary evacuation of U.S. citizens.
It wasn't until two days later that the Japanese acknowledged the threat was greater than they'd thought. The Japanese declared a voluntary evacuation zone of 12 miles around the plant; the U.S. says it should be 50 miles. There is great uncertainty.
Top experts disagree on fundamental questions such as whether melting fuel rods would cause an explosion or just a fire. Answers are critical to planning for a bigger emergency.
More than 50 American experts are in Japan, including engineers from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and public health advisors. Many are working in three joint emergency operations centers around Tokyo. One of their biggest problems is getting a good look at the damaged reactors. Surveillance pictures have been poor.
"You're dealing with the smoke, you're dealing with the debris. It is just very difficult to make such an assessment of the situation. I mean you're really trying to scrutinize the pixels of the picture," Nesheiwat explained.
The U.S. team is using cameras and sensors carried by drones in the air and robots on the ground to get a clearer idea of what's going on. No one knows what will happen at Fukushima,
