While condemning the President’s visit this past weekend to California to witness the devastating wildfires himself and his comment on the topic, BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay argued on Monday’s Morning Joe that climate change “is probably the most pressing issue of our time.”
She added that, due to America’s inaction, history will look back with shame on this generation for committing “one of the great tragedies of this political moment of division” with “the extent to which climate change has become a victim of that partisanship” as Republicans remain anti-science....or something.
So, Russia? Nope. Russian hacking? Nope. China? Nope? Islamic terror? Nope. Climate change? Yes!
Kay’s — wait for — hot take was teed up by a clip of the President criticizing California’s forestry conservation methods and MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski lamenting that “President of Finland says he briefed the President recently on his country's forest management, but did not recall mentioning about raking.”
“I’m not sure what he was trying to get at, Katty Kay, but this just adds to the list of reasons why our allies and other countries around the world just look at America differently today,” she added.
Kay explained that “[t]he idea that the world is not laughing at America at the moment, but on that one, they are because it patently wasn't the case that that was what was happening.”
It was here that she invoked climate change, which could have easily been substituted for global cooling or population control in previous decades (click “expand”):
I think that, you know, we will look back and see that one of the great tragedies of this political moment of division is the extent to which climate change has become a victim of that partisanship and if you are on the side of Donald Trump and his supporters, you will go to the ends of Earth to say that climate change is not responsible for what is happening out in California or other parts of the world at the moment, and if you are a believer in climate change and science, you will try and address that, but the President is an incredibly powerful position, to lead the world right now on what is probably the most pressing issue of our time and faced — in the face of incontrovertible, scientific evidence that climate change is contributing and it is what Gavin Newsom has said, the Governor-elect, is what Jerry Brown is saying, what dozens of scientists including inside the administration are saying is that climate change is behind these things, the President still says, “well, not really, no” tiny bit, hasn’t changed his view on climate change. He doesn’t really think that’s the issue here. Let's get back to raking leaves. Anything other than let’s address the issue of climate change.
Before the last sentence, Brzezinski groaned: “Good Lord.”
Fellow co-host, fiancé, and faux Republican Joe Scarborough responded not by citing a Wall Street Journal editorial agreeing with the President or trying to respectfully disagree, but by mocking Trump’s take as if it were first concocted “in a South Park episode a couple years ago.”
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Morning Joe on November 19, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
November 19, 2018
6:14 a.m. EasternJOE SCARBOROUGH: Raking.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The President of Finland says he briefed the President recently on his country's forest management, but did not recall mentioning about raking. I’m not sure what he was trying to get at, Katty Kay, but this just adds to the list of reasons why our allies and other countries around the world just look at America differently today.
KATTY KAY: Yeah, so the social meme — meme things going around Finland are groups of people getting out over the weekend and kind of humorously raking as a sort of trolling Donald Trump.
BRZEZINSKI: God!
KAY: The idea that the world is not laughing at America at the moment, but on that one, they are because it patently wasn't the case that that was what was happening. I think that, you know, we will look back and see that one of the great tragedies of this political moment of division is the extent to which climate change has become a victim of that partisanship and if you are on the side of Donald Trump and his supporters, you will go to the ends of Earth to say that climate change is not responsible for what is happening out in California or other parts of the world at the moment, and if you are a believer in climate change and science, you will try and address that, but the President is an incredibly powerful position, to lead the world right now on what is probably the most pressing issue of our time and faced — in the face of incontrovertible, scientific evidence that climate change is contributing and it is what Gavin Newsom has said, the Governor-elect, is what Jerry Brown is saying, what dozens of scientists including inside the administration are saying is that climate change is behind these things, the President still says, “well, not really, no” tiny bit, hasn’t changed his view on climate change. He doesn’t really think that’s the issue here. Let's get back to raking leaves.
BRZEZINSKI: Good Lord.
KAY: Anything other than let’s address the issue of climate change.
BRZEZINSKI: Sorry. You’d think we would be done.
SCARBOROUGH: I just must say, again, raking leaves, this is — I think I saw this in a South Park episode a couple years ago or if not we need to see it, because, again, it's such a laughable explanation for why we're having these tragic forest fires. It’s, but I mean —
BRZEZINSKI: It was quite a doddering answer.
