After MSNBC spent the weekend exploiting Hurricane Irma’s devastation of Florida to push the climate change agenda, on Monday, anchor Andrea Mitchell turned to Daily Beast Politics Editor Sam Stein and worried: “...climate change. It is something – Sam, you’ve been writing about this – something that has not been raised in much of the coverage.”
The liberal pundit, formerly of The Huffington Post, touted a screed he wrote up on Sunday about the topic and whined: “Now, what we discovered just by going through the transcripts of White House briefings and by television interviews and pundits – except for MSNBC, I should say – was that this is not being discussed at all. The White House has not faced a question on climate change since these storms came on the horizon...”
He then admitted: “Until yesterday, when the [White House press] pool lobbed a question at Donald Trump.”
Even as he claimed that the administration had not faced enough questions based on left-wing talking points, Stein cited an example of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt being grilled by CNN about climate change last week: “Scott Pruitt, the EPA Director, said we shouldn't be discussing this in the aftermath of hurricanes.” “That’s the equivalent of saying you can’t discuss counterterrorism in the aftermath of a terrorist attack,” he ranted.
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Here is a full transcript of the September 11 exchange:
12:59 PM ET
(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: And I also want to ask both of you about climate change. It is something – Sam, you’ve been writing about this – something that has not been raised in much of the coverage. We’ve been covering these back-to-back storms. And I know there’s no cause and effect relationship that can be established, but there are certainly trends.
SAM STEIN [DAILY BEAST, POLITICS EDITOR]: Well, sure.
MITCHELL: And warmer waters are certainly one of the factors here.
STEIN: I mean, I don’t even know if you can say there’s no cause and effect. Scientists conclude that warmer waters feed these storms and these storms are of higher intensity because of it. And certainly among the factors that you should be discussing in the aftermath of these is climate change.
Now, what we discovered just by going through the transcripts of White House briefings and by television interviews and pundits – except for MSNBC, I should say – was that this is not being discussed at all. The White House has not faced a question on climate change since these storms came on the horizon, so it’s been about two and a half weeks. Until yesterday, when the [White House press] pool lobbed a question at Donald Trump.
Scott Pruitt, the EPA Director, said we shouldn't be discussing this in the aftermath of hurricanes. That’s the equivalent of saying you can’t discuss counterterrorism in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. And so, it’s an interesting thing that we’re not having this discussion in the midst of these historic storms.
MITCHELL: And we hate to leave it there, we have to.
(...)
