On Tuesday's MTP Daily on MSNBC, fill-in host Katy Tur fretted over the refusal of many Senate Democrats to vote in favor of the Green New Deal program when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brought it up for a vote.
At 5:51 p.m. Eastern, during "The Lid" segment, Tur brought up the issue: "Let's talk about the Green New Deal. There was a show vote -- show vote -- McConnell let it in the Senate in order to back the Democrats into a corner -- to make them say yes to a proposal that the Republicans want to hang them by in 2020."
She then posed: "Why don't the Democrats, if they, as Chuck Schumer said -- want to own the issue of the environment and of climate change -- push back and say, 'Yeah, I'm happy to own this'? Why just vote present?"
After liberal panel member Heather McGhee of Demos mocked Sen. Mike Lee as spouting nonsense and argued that the real problem is for the Republicans, who are hurting themselves on the issue because millennial Republicans are "way out ahead" of their elders and more liberal on the environment, Tur followed up:
The science is there. I mean, the science is there -- it's not disputed. Was the mistake of the Green New Deal to put too much into it -- to talk about a universal basic wage to make it too aspirational and to not focus it on the things that should get done immediately when it comes to climate change?
After right-leaning New York Times columnist Bret Stephens argued that banning the use of fossil fuels with the Green New Deal is not economically feasible, Tur persisted that "the science" demands radical change now:
But the science -- the science is there, and you can't -- it's hard to argue with the science when you look at the report that was put out by the U.N., the congressional report that was put out. The science says say that if swift action is not taken and big actions are not taken -- quickly! -- then we're not going to be in a good position in 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 years -- that we don't have the luxury of coming up with a slow easing into new energy sources and a slow easing into a new version of our economy. The science does not make the argument that you're making, Bret.
As Stephens began to comment, "What you're saying, in effect, is that we need to go on something like a war footing against --" Tur jumped back in to declare: "That's what the science is saying. That's what the U.N. scientists are saying. That's not me -- that's what people who study this are saying. They're alarmist."
MSNBC should go first and stop wasting carbon by broadcasting.
