Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to be taken "seriously" in regard to nuclear threats, since he's becoming more "dangerous" as he's pushed into a corner.
Speaking to CBS's Martha Raddatz on "This Week" Sunday, Mullen said, "Well, I have to take Putin seriously. He has got lots of options with tactical nuclear weapons, from very low-yield nuclear weapons. He's a cornered, I believe, a cornered animal; and I think he's more and more dangerous — just what has happened in the last 24 hours, that bridge was struck, which was logistically critical as well as very symbolic.
"So I think we have to take him seriously and think through ... what the requirements would be for us to respond to that.
"It also speaks to the need, I think, to get to the table," Mullen added, referring to peace talks. "I'm a little concerned about the language which we're about at the top, if you will," the admiral pointed out, alluding to President Joe Biden's use of the word "Armageddon" and the hawkish positions from those within his administration.
"President Biden's language?" Raddatz asked.
"President Biden's language: We're about at the top of the language scale, if you will," Mullen replied. "So ... I think we need to back off that a little bit and do everything we possibly can to try to get to the table to resolve this thing."
Over the weekend, an explosion hit the Kerch Bridge, which connects the Crimean Peninsula to Russia. According to The Associated Press, on Sunday, Putin said the explosion was "a terrorist act" carried out by Ukrainian special forces.
On Saturday, former President Donald Trump, during one of his rallies, called for peace negotiations amid the conflict in Ukraine.
"We must demand the immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III, and there will be nothing left of our planet," Trump said at his rally in Minden, Nevada. "I rebuilt our nuclear power. They don't understand what they're dealing with — the power of nuclear."
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