Politics - News Analysis

Trump Just Said He’s ‘Too Intelligent’ To Believe That Climate Change Is Real

According to a new interview with The Washington Post, Donald Trump disputed the scientific consensus that human activity contributes to climate change in his most expansive rejection yet of his own administration’s report on global warming.

In the interview Trump said “I don’t see” that climate change is man-made and disagreed with the report’s findings that it poses significant health and safety concerns.

“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers,” Trump said. “You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.”

On the issue of whether global warming is caused by humans, Trump added: “As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it.”

The comments come days after his administration published its first National Climate Assessment, which found that climate change could upend daily life for many Americans as it takes a toll on infrastructure, human health and the world’s energy supply. It also said current and global and regional efforts are not enough to reverse the trends.

Trump, who decided last year to withdraw from the Obama-era Paris Climate Accord, has previously criticized the report, and his top aides have said its warnings are overheated.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Tuesday that the report is “not based on facts” and because the science behind climate modeling “is never exact.”

“The president’s certainly leading on what matters most in this process, and that’s on having clean air, clean water,” Sanders said. “In fact, the United States continues to be a leader on that front.”

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