In an ideal world, words have meaning. But if you’re CNN and others who are just mindlessly gnashing their teeth at President Donald Trump for leaving the Paris Climate Agreement, words and facts fly straight out the window because, muh, rage!
Trump signed an executive order following his inauguration calling for “immediate” withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement “under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.” Now, terms matter. The agreement is NOT a “treaty,” regardless of whatever the dense climate dweebs at the UN choose to call it.
Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the president “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.” Even The Associated Press acknowledged this in its January 21 reporting on Trump’s order, which also doesn’t mention the word “treaty” once. Even former President Barack Obama’s administration was adamant that the Paris Agreement was not a treaty, so he could sneakily bypass the Senate advice and consent requirement.
Framing the agreement as a treaty makes it seem like Trump is violating U.S. law by unilaterally withdrawing from it. But CNN didn’t catch this when it was too busy trying to rip Trump for supposedly dooming the earth’s climate in a January 20 screed by Senior Climate and Weather Editor Angela Fritz. “President Donald Trump signed actions on the first day of his second term to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty, which nearly 200 countries agreed to work together to limit global warming.” Fritz mourned: “The stakes couldn’t be higher for the planet and humanity’s ability to adapt to the changing climate and the increasing cost of climate-related disasters.”
Even CNN anchor Anderson Cooper couldn’t tell the difference while trying to take apart Trump’s executive actions during the January 20 edition of Anderson Cooper 360, including pulling out of a "treaty":
Somebody page CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale and tell him to come get his colleagues.
But CNN wasn’t alone in looking stupid. The George Soros-funded climate-obsessed organization Global Citizen called the Agreement a “treaty” seven times in its January 21 outburst against Trump. Soros funneled $4,750,000 into Global Citizen between 2022 and 2023 alone. It’s even more funny when you read how the organization embellished the term to make Trump supposedly look worse. Here are a few examples:
- “Trump’s team wasted no time issuing executive orders to once again withdraw the US — currently the world’s second-biggest polluter, after China — from the primary treaty coordinating international action against climate change.”
- “The Paris Agreement is the United Nations’ most important climate treaty.”
- “The treaty is monumental because it marks the first time that the world has come together to collectively fight the greatest existential threat of our time.”
You’d think Soros would rather put his money into groups that actually know what they’re talking about, but perhaps the $4.7 million was just simply part of his throw-away fund.
The Guardian committed the same ridiculous error in a sub-headline trying to dig at Trump: “On first day back as president, Trump signs letter giving notice to UN of US exit from treaty seeking to curb climate crisis effects.” The leftist rag made it look like Trump was violating law, which is as insane as it is dumb:
During Trump’s first term, pulling the US from the treaty had a limited impact. Though he announced the exit shortly after taking the oath of office in 2017, the decision did not take effect until November 2020 due to complicated United Nations regulations. This time, however, Trump’s withdrawal could take as little as one year as the administration will not be bound by the accord’s initial three-year commitment.
Oh but we’re not finished. Sky News embellished its reporting to turn Trump into some sort of climate villain for yanking the U.S. out of the, er, “treaty:” “Donald Trump will pull the US, the world's second-largest climate polluter, out of the most important global treaty for tackling climate change for the second time.”
Over at science magazine New Scientist, the outlet seethed at Trump and tried to condemn his “America First” agenda while falsely calling the Agreement a “treaty:”
A cheer went up from the crowd in a Washington DC stadium on 20 January as US president Donald Trump signed an order on stage to withdraw the US from the Paris climate treaty. The order said the move was in the interest of putting ‘America first’. But environmental groups condemned the decision, arguing the exit of the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter from the agreement will exacerbate climate damages while ceding US influence in global negotiations to its rival and clean-energy juggernaut, China.
Now, to be fair, Trump’s assistant did make an off-the-cuff reference to the agreement as a “treaty” while the president signed the executive order on the matter at the Capitol One Arena, but you would expect the media informing the public to get it right. NOT!
