EPA chief Scott Pruitt dodged several questions Friday when reporters asked him point-blank if Donald Trump believes climate change is real.
Trump has said in the past that he believes global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese government to hurt the American economy.
“Just hoping you can clear this up once and for all — yes or no — does the president believe that climate change is real and a threat to the United States?” a reporter asked during Friday’s White House press briefing.
Pruitt would not give a yes or no answer, and instead said they have been solely focused on whether or not the Paris accord was a good deal.
“All of the discussions we had in the past several weeks have been focused on one singular issue: is Paris good or not for this country?” Pruitt said.
Another reporter asked the same question just a few minutes later, hoping to get a straight answer.
“I’d like to go back to the first question that was asked the you didn’t answer: does the president believe today that climate change is a hoax?”
“You know, I did answer the question,” Pruitt snapped, “because I said the discussions the president and I had over the last several weeks had been focused on one key issue…the president and I focused our attention on [Paris].”
Later in the briefing, Pruitt asserted that there are “climate exaggerators” rather than “climate skeptics or climate deniers” before reading a quote from Bret Stephens’ piece on climate change in The New York Times.