Rick Santorum Says Climate Scientists ‘Driven by Money’, Applauds Trump For Dropping Climate Report on Holiday
On State of the Union on Sunday, former GOP senator and current CNN contributor Rick Santorum told guest host Dana Bash that climate scientists are “driven by money,” praised Donald Trump‘s White House for minimizing his administration’s climate change report, and reiterated the president’s position that bad forest management was the primary cause of the wildfires in California.
“President Trump seems to be at odds over his own administration over a new report warning about the effects of climate change. Did we mention that the administration released the report on Friday of a holiday weekend? Let’s talk about that,” said Bash. “Rick Santorum is nodding his head.”
“Good for them,” said Santorum.
Bash was only slightly caught off guard, saying “‘good for them.’ Alright, well at least you guys are transparent about it.”
“Well, this is a report generated by people who are in the bureaucracy, these are not Trump appointees. I mean, this report has been generated for —”
“Meaning they’re nonpolitical,” interjected Bash.
“Well, no, I think the point that Donald Trump made is true which is, look, if there was no climate change we would have a lot of scientists looking for work,” he replied. “The reality is that a lot of these scientists are driven by the money that they receive, and of course, they don’t receive money from corporations and Exxon and the like, and why, because they’re not allowed to, because it’s tainted, but they can receive it from people who support their agenda and that, I believe, is what’s really going on here.”
“No one doubts that the climate has changed, no one doubts that.” he continued. “The question is how much does man contribute, number one. And number two, what can man do to actually change it? Those are the two big issues that we really don’t talk about.”
CNN strategist Symone Sanders jumped in at that point and questioned the idea of big climate.
“Scientist after scientist after scientist is now sounding the alarm that if we do not do something to protect our planet now, 20 to 30 years from now, our life will be very different,” she said. “So this is not some ploy by the lobby of the climate elite. I don’t even know if that exists. This is facts of what’s happening. California was literally burning last week. California is literally burning. That is not normal.”
“Man’s policy had a lot to do with that, because of the forestry policies of the state of California,” said Santorum.
“Oh so we just need to rake the floor,” said Sanders.
Santorum said “the reality” is there’s a lot of disagreement about global warming, and that 25 years ago said the same thing they are saying now. When Bash objected that now 25 years later we have the California fires, he again cited the state’s forestry policies failure to manage the forest floor.
Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol then addressed the issue, saying “what’s sad is that conservatives have good policy arguments, in my view, about how to deal with climate change, or how to ensure against it,” and cited carbon taxes and other policy items. He said the problem under Trump is that instead of quality policy discussion he just insults the other side.
“Trump just attacks everyone’s motives, attacks everyone’s— makes it seem like there’s no reasonable position on the other side, and then people, the Republicans sort of follow him like sheep and the party looks idiotic,” he said. “The party, which 25 years ago, when Rick came into the Congress and the Senate, was a party of ideas, some of them good, some of them probably not so good in retrospect, but a lot of them good and a lot of them interesting… the Republican Party does not look to any younger people now like that’s willing to confront the issue.”
Watch the clip above, courtesy of CNN.
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