Anderson Cooper: Why Can’t White House Give Us a Straight Answer on Trump’s Climate Change Views?
Anderson Cooper opened his show tonight by wondering why the White House can’t just give a straight answer on whether President Donald Trump accepts climate change is real or not.
Cooper said at the top that the White House is “acting as if the public simply does not deserve to know the president’s thinking about the key issue behind arguably one of the biggest decisions he’s made so far.”
He said that’s a “bit strange” and once again reiterated, “We do not know what the president actually believes about global warming, which, as I said, is a bit odd, because it’s a simple yes or no.”
Sean Spicer, EPA chief Scott Pruitt, Kellyanne Conway, and Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn were all asked about Trump’s personal views since the announcement about withdrawing from the Paris climate accord yesterday. None of them gave a straight answer.
Now, the president is on record saying––before he was elected––it’s a big hoax:
We should be focused on magnificently clean and healthy air and not distracted by the expensive hoax that is global warming!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2013
So reporters want to know if he still thinks that.
Cooper also brought up how Spicer is now referring questions on Russia to outside counsel, leading Cooper to conclude that on both this and climate change, the White House is essentially saying “don’t ask us.”
He then spoke with Jim Acosta, who confronted Pruitt on whether they will acknowledge the scientific consensus.
Watch above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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