He has called it an “expensive hoax” invented by the Chinese. He has denied it exists, denied that he denied it exists, and also managed to say humans share “some” of the blame for its existence.
“He” is President Donald Trump, and “it” is climate change ― a subject White House officials apparently avoid discussing with him, lest anyone ask them about where he stands on the issue.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt both repeatedly refused to answer a simple question on Friday: Does the president believe in climate change?
Pruitt avoided the question entirely, instead choosing to talk about whether Trump considers the Paris Agreement on climate change to be a bad deal. (Trump announced on Thursday that he plans to remove the U.S. from the accord, so we pretty much already knew he did.)
Spicer told reporters that he hasn’t had the opportunity to discuss climate change with Trump ― even though when a reporter asked Spicer earlier this week about the president’s views, he promised to “get back to you on that”:
Because the White House won’t say if the president believes in climate change, here are some of Trump’s previous statements on the subject. Most of them indicate he doesn’t:
Before You Go
