Vice Presidential candidate and Indiana Governor Mike Pence distanced himself from running mate Donald Trump on the issue of climate change, while also explaining the meaning behind the much talked about tweet referenced in Monday night’s debate.
“What Donald Trump said was a hoax is that bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., can control the climate of the Earth,” Pence said in a CNN interview. He went on to explain that “there’s no question that the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate.” By contrast, in 2014, Pence said he didn’t consider climate change “a resolved issue in science.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway explained her boss’s comment from the debate. “He believes that global warming is naturally occurring,” she said. She confirmed he does not think climate change is caused by human activity.
In other campaign news, Trump tapped climate skeptic Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute to spearhead the transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency. Ebell has said any warming of the planet is within the range of natural variability and “whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about.”