Kellyanne Conway attempted yet again to change the Trump campaign’s position on global warming — its existence, not what to do about it — Tuesday morning, telling CNN‘s Alisyn Camerota that the Republican nominee “believes that global warming is naturally occurring.”
“There are shifts naturally occurring,” Conway said, when pressed on what Trump meant Monday night when he denied ever calling climate change a “hoax.”
“He doesn’t believe it’s man made?” Camerota asked.
“Correct,” Conway replied.
“He believes the idea it’s man made is a hoax?” Camerota asked, with pictures of Trump’s tweets behind her.
“No, I didn’t say that,” Conway replied.
“I mean, he said it. I’m repeating his tweet. He believes that part is a hoax,” Camerota said.
“He believes climate change is naturally occurring. We don’t know what Hillary Clinton believes because nobody ever asks her,” Conway said.
“She talked about it last night. She does not believe it’s a hoax,” Camerota replied.
“She gave us scripted responses about somebody’s going be the clean energy super power,” Conway said, before Camerota moved on to Trump’s “mic issues.”
At Monday night’s debate, Donald Trump falsely claimed he had never said climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese government in order to make American manufacturing less competitive.
In fact, he has consistently dismissed the threat of climate change over the years, and his climate policies reflect that: Trump has aggressively courted the coal and gas lobbies, and on Monday he appointed Myron Ebell, one of the nation’s most prominent climate skeptics, to lead his EPA transition team.
In 2012, Trump tweeted “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
And in 2014, Trump tweeted “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice.”
This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2014
Days later, he told “Fox & Friends” that climate scientists were “having a lot of fun” with their long-term forecasting.
And so on, for years, up to the present day. (Reddit user Hatewrecked has compiled a useful list of dozens of Trump’s tweets denying not only the existence of man-made climate change, but also of any “natural” warming of the earth.)
