September 27, 2016 | No Comments
Donald Trump believes that “global warming is naturally occurring,” his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday morning on CNN, contradicting previous online statements from the Manhattan billionaire that the phenomenon is a “hoax” created “by and for the Chinese.”
The issue of Donald Trump’s belief in climate science was raised at Monday night’s debate by Hillary Clinton, who said that “Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real.” That remark prompted a quick interjection from Trump, who interrupted Clinton to say “I did not, I do not say that.”
But Trump has made such remarks in the past on Twitter, writing in 2012 that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” And in 2013, he posted that “Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee – I’m in Los Angeles and it’s freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”
Presented with those posts Tuesday morning, Conway admitted that Trump believes “that climate change is naturally occurring, that there are shifts naturally occurring” but added that the GOP nominee does not believe that those shifts are man-made. She also dismissed the notion that it is possible to grasp Trump’s policy positions, be they on climate change or his stance on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, from non-traditional sources.
“I think that’s based on a tweet,” Conway said when asked about Trump’s previous statements that climate change is a hoax. “I just love that, that this whole man, whether he’s giving a, ‘yeah, I guess so,’ answer to Howard Stern about invading Iraq as a private citizen on an entertainment radio show, or through a tweet, we’re supposed to understand all of his policies.”
Later, Conway suggested that it is Clinton, not Trump, who has been unclear on the issue of climate change.
“He believes climate change is naturally occurring. We don’t know what Hillary Clinton believes because nobody ever asks her,” Conway said, to which anchor Alisyn Camerota replied that the former secretary of state had addressed the issue quite clearly at Monday night’s debate.
“Oh, she gave us the canned, scripted responses, Alisyn, about ‘somebody’s going to be the clean energy super power,’” Conway said. “Look, I can’t blame her. She obviously was overprepared and wanted to make sure we heard every single scripted moment, including the snarky ones that she had prepared to say.”