Trump, pressed on the environment in U.K. visit, says climate change goes ‘both ways’

His eldest daughter, Ivanka, could not change his mind.

His former secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, could not change his mind.

Scores of international scientists could not change his mind.

And now, President Trump, who has called global warming a “Chinese hoax” and pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, appears similarly unmoved by an appeal from British royalty.

The president left a 90-minute meeting this week with Charles, Prince of Wales, unconvinced that the climate is warming, which it is, according to overwhelming scientific consensus. The Earth’s average surface temperature in 2018 was the fourth-highest since 1880, when record-keeping began. That means that the past five years have been the warmest in recorded history.

But the president has other beliefs.

“I believe that there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with Piers Morgan on “Good Morning Britain” that aired Wednesday morning. “Don’t forget it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather, you can’t miss.”

Trump cited severe conditions from long ago as evidence for his views, even though scientists say extreme events are becoming more common, driven by climate change. 

“Forty years ago, we had the worst tornado binge we’ve ever had,” Trump said. “In the 1890s, we had our worst hurricanes.”

He said he was impressed by the passion displayed by the Prince of Wales, who has been an outspoken advocate on climate issues. The two were supposed to meet for 15 minutes, Trump said, but ended up speaking for an hour and a half. He said he shared the prince’s desire for a “good climate as opposed to a disaster.” 

But the president blamed China, India and Russia for polluting the environment and said the United States was responsible for “among the cleanest climates.”

Carbon dioxide emissions by the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter, rose an estimated 3.4 percent in 2018, according to findings published in January by the independent economic research firm Rhodium Group. And as the White House gears up to counter the consensus on climate change, it has tapped William Happer, a National Security Council senior director, to lead the effort. Happer once said, “The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”

In the interview with Morgan in the Churchill War Rooms, Trump also weighed in on his administration’s standoff with Iran, saying he would prefer not to take military action while maintaining, “There’s always a chance.” He said he understood the “terrible responsibility” that comes with access to the country’s nuclear arsenal. 

He also said he wanted to look into the issue of suppressors that muffle the sound of gunfire, one of which was used in the shooting that left 12 people dead last week in Virginia Beach. ADVERTISING

“What’s happening is crazy,” Trump said of the scourge of gun violence. Yet he also pointed to knife crime in Britain and 2015 attacks at the Bataclan theater in Paris — carried out by Islamic State-inspired gunmen, whom Trump termed a “wacky group of people” — in an apparent suggestion that brutality was not a uniquely American phenomenon. Morgan replied, “More people were shot dead in America last week than died from guns in Paris since the Second World War.”

So, too, Trump discussed several personal feuds. Morgan, the “Good Morning Britain” host and former champion of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” told Trump he thought his continued attacks on John McCain, the late Republican senator from Arizona, were “beneath” him. 

“No, I don’t attack him,” Trump said. “People ask me, like you’re asking me. I didn’t bring his name up; you did.” Of the directive to obscure the USS John S. McCain warship while Trump was visiting Japan, the president said he bore no responsibility for it, adding, “I’m not even sure it happened.” 

He also blamed the media for stoking conflict between him and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. When he said he had not realized she had been “nasty” toward him, he was not labeling her “nasty,” he asserted, instead only observing that she had criticized him. In fact, when asked about Meghan Markle’s criticism of him before the 2016 election, he told the Sun newspaper, “I didn’t know that she was nasty.”

Trump remarked to Morgan: “Hey, join the crowd, right?” He said of the American member of the British royal family, “I hope she enjoys her life.”

As for himself, Trump said being hosted in Britain, including for a lavish state banquet in Buckingham Palace, was among the highlights of his life.

As the interview was airing Wednesday morning, Trump took to Twitter to play down protests that brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of London, suggesting falsely that the crowds had gathered in support of him. 

[Washington Post]

Media

Trump: London Mayor Made ‘Very Rude Statements’ About Me

Trump and London mayor Sadiq Khan

Donald Trump said Monday London’s new mayor made “very rude statements” about him — and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee warned he won’t have a good relationship with British Prime Minister David Cameron if he’s elected.

Trump made the comments in an interview with ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” host Piers Morgan, when asked to respond to criticisms made about him by British politicians.

Trump’s comments on Islam have provoked an outcry in the UK, and prompted parliamentarians to debate a proposal to ban him from the country for hate speech after a petition to do so attracted more than 500,000 signatures.

In December, Cameron labeled the presidential hopeful’s suggestion of a temporary ban on Muslims traveling to the U.S. as “divisive, stupid and wrong.”

Asked about Cameron’s remarks, Trump said he didn’t care, but then added, “It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship. Who knows, I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he’s not willing to address the problem either.”

He continued: “Number one, I’m not stupid, okay? I can tell you that right now. Just the opposite. Number two, in terms of divisive, I don’t think I’m a divisive person, I’m a unifier, unlike our president now, I’m a unifier.”

A spokeswoman for Cameron said he had made his views on Trump’s “Muslim ban” proposal clear and had “nothing further to add.”

The prime minister would “work with whoever is the president of the United States and he is committed to maintaining the special relationship,” the spokeswoman said.

Trump also had words for Sadiq Khan, who became the first Muslim to hold the office of mayor of London when he was elected earlier this month.

Shortly after taking office, Khan criticized Trump’s views of Islam as ignorant — remarks that Trump said had offended him. The new mayor had been responding to a suggestion from Trump that he would make an “exception” to his proposed “temporary Muslim ban” for Khan.

“Let’s take an I.Q. test,” Trump said Monday, adding that Khan had never met him and “doesn’t know what I’m all about.”

“I think they’re very rude statements and frankly, tell him, I will remember those statements. They’re very nasty statements.”

A spokesperson for Khan called Trump’s views “ignorant, divisive and dangerous.”
“Sadiq has spent his whole life fighting extremism, but Trump’s remarks make that fight much harder for us all — it plays straight into the extremists’ hands and makes both our countries less safe,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Khan responded Monday by repeating his criticism of Trump’s politics, calling it “the politics of fear at its worst,” and saying Trump’s remarks on Islam play “straight into the extremists’ hands and makes both our countries less safe.”

He rebuffed Trump’s suggestion of taking an I.Q. test, saying “ignorance is not the same thing as lack of intelligence.”

Khan told CNN last week he hoped that Trump would not win the U.S. election, describing him as “somebody who is trying to divide, not just your communities in America but who is trying to divide America from the rest of the world.”

Trump, who in December issued a press release “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” appeared to modify his position last week.
He said such a ban “hasn’t been called for yet” and was “only a suggestion.”

(h/t CNN)

Media

Trump Says We’re Not Going to Have a Very Good Relationship With Britain

Donald Trump has hit back at criticism from Britain’s leaders by describing himself in an interview with Piers Morgan as “not stupid” and a “unifier.”

The presumptive Republican nominee made the comments to Good Morning Britain, the breakfast show of NBC News’ U.K. partner ITV.

He was asked about comments by British Prime Minister David Cameron, leader of the U.K.’s Conservative Party, who said that Trump’s suggestion Muslims should be barred from the United States was “divisive, stupid and wrong.”

Trump told Good Morning Britain that “it looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship,” if he were to win the presidential election in November.

“Number one, I’m not stupid, OK? I can tell you that right now — just the opposite,” he told Morgan, the former CNN talk-show host. “Number two, in terms of divisive, I don’t think I’m a divisive person. I’m a unifier, unlike our president now I’m a unifier.”

In December, a week after the San Bernardino shooting in which 14 people were killed, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Asked to clarify this position in Monday’s interview, he said “millions of people were calling in saying, ‘Donald Trump is right.'”

Trump has also been condemned by left-of-center British politicians, including new London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Khan — a Muslim member of the U.K.’s opposition Labour Party — said Trump’s comments on Islam were “ignorant,” adding that he hopes the Republican loses the election.

“When he won I wished him well — now, I don’t care about him,” Trump told Good Morning Britain. “Let’s see how he does, I mean let’s see if he’s a good mayor.”

Trump said Khan was “very rude,” and added: “Tell him I will remember those statements, they’re very nasty statements.”

Khan “doesn’t know me, never met me, doesn’t know what I’m all about,” the real-estate mogul said.

(h/t NBC)

Reality

Donald Trump is doing an amazing job making our closest alley upset with us. That’s a very interesting foreign policy.

Media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6-e5hNIBOk