Former Trump Defense Secretary James Mattis Has Message for (AHEM) ‘Those Skeptical of Climate Change’

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis continued his policy of not directly criticizing President Donald Trump, but had a pointed message for unnamed people who are “skeptical of climate change,” like Donald Trump.

On Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, host Andrea Mitchell asked Mattis to weigh in on the Navy’s recent rollback of an Obama-era climate task force.

Mattis said he wasn’t familiar with the details of that issue and declined to comment, but elaborated further on his own.

“I will say that climate change, I believe, is a reality,” Mattis said. “We are dealing with open waters where it used to be ice fields, that we have to deal with.”

“And I think that, let me just talk for a moment to go to our skeptical climate change,” he continued, adding “Wouldn’t you, even if you’re a skeptical of it, wouldn’t you want to take out an insurance policy just in case it was right?”

“I mean, I’m not going to talk to people who believe in climate change, but for those who are adamant there’s no climate change, you look at the receding sea ice and have different explanations, why wouldn’t we take out an insurance policy and do prudent steps to make certain the generation that’s coming up is not going to be caught flat-footed by this?” Mattis asked.

“It’s a national security issue because when people have to leave devastated areas, and move elsewhere, the refugee flows, all the humanitarian effort that goes into it, the willingness of some people to take advantage of those people, terrorists in particular, and recruit from them because they feel a loss of hope, it’s a reality we’re going to have to deal with,” Mattis concluded.

Trump has a long history of climate change denial, and was recently busted for lying about skipping a climate change meeting at the G7 summit.

Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.