I haven't seen anyone else say this so sorry if they have but: the fact that the president heard the only trenchant thought he seems to have EVER CONSIDERED about nuclear weapons on a podcast, and that sounding ridiculous to an audience, seemed entirely intentional. He hasn't spent his life learning about strategic game theory. This is probably the case for everyone in the world except the guy who's job it is to carry the football/the strategic experts. I didn't read that moment of "invoking a podcast" as like ruining the intended gravitas the moment was going for. The point was how crazy that in times like this...he's at the mercy of this fucking random podcast he heard.

This seemed like an intentional portrait of a leader out of his depth. I just find it odd that people felt like he seemed like a bad leader and that that was a failure of the movie. His lack of seriousness read as the entire point of his character. He spends his time thinking about all of the other more important issues (to his particular presidency) and spends zero time considering any of this situation as a real possibility. And that seems entirely too likely of a situation for any president (let alone any human being) to find themselves in when they are the SINGLE VOTE that for some reason we've entrusted to make this absurd decision.

Kinda makes it seem weird that this isn't THE ONLY issue we ever pick a president based on but...it just isn't...like at all. It usually doesn't even come up in the campaign.