On Friday morning, CNN demonstrated that, in the aftermath of one of the most high-profile annual gatherings of conservatives, CPAC, its journalists are more interested in highlighting a left-leaning segment of that otherwise conservative gathering. It's almost a week in coming, as CNN climate correspondent (and alarmist) Bill Weir celebrated the efforts of young conservatives who are lobbying fellow Republicans to move left on the issue of global warming.
The CNN reporter also condescendingly referred to global warming skeptics as "those who have a hard time coming to grips" versus "those who believe in the warnings from science."
New Day co-host Alisyn Camerota set up the segment by first giving air to teenage liberal activist Greta Thunberg's reaction to recent actions by the European Union:
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Climate activist Greta Thunberg denouncing a climate law unveiled this week by the European Union, saying it amounts to surrender. Meanwhile, a group of conservative college students are following in her footsteps, and are trying to move Republicans to action. CNN's Bill Weir met them at CPAC. So Bill is here with us. So tell us about what they're doing.
Weir began his five-minute report:
BILL WEIR: This is really interesting. I travel between two Americas generally on this job -- those who believe in the warnings from science, those who have a hard time coming to grips -- but it seems this conversation is really changing as evidenced by the reddest of red-blooded Republican gatherings at CPAC this year in which not one but two young, green Teddy Roosevelt-style Republican groups who are trying to convince the base to think differently about this issue.
The piece focused on two groups of young conservatives who attended CPAC and lobbied for Republicans to take more actions based on the alarmist premises pushed by liberals that the government can and should try to stop global warming. Weir was seen speaking with Kiera O'Brien of Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends, which advocates taxing carbon emissions and distributing $2,000 checks to each American family:
WEIR: So do you consider yourself sort of a Republican Greta?
KIERA O'BRIEN, YOUNG CONSERVATIVES FOR CARBON DIVIDENDS (laughing): No, no. I see myself as a solution seeker. I'm done with us talking about the problem. We've talked about the problem -- we recognize the problem -- and now we need to talk about the solutions.
WEIR: She's the leader of this booth full of Republicans all devoted to fighting climate change with taxes on Big Oil. I've been to a few CPACs in my day, and, spotting a climate-woke Republican who wants to have a carbon tax is like spotting a snow leopard in the wild.
Weir soon cited the kind of poll that journalists and other liberals like to hear about, finding that young Republicans are moving left. Here's Weir: "A rival group of conservative climate hawks gather as, for the first time, polls show more than half of young Republicans believe the government isn't doing enough to fight manmade global warming. But, as more of them agree with Greta that our house is on fire, new debates are breaking out over the best way to put it out."
He then showed clips of Benji Backer of the American Conservation Coalition praising Thunberg but being critical of President Donald Trump on the issue of global warming:
BENJI BACKER, AMERICAN CONSERVATION COALITION: I think she's incredible. For someone her age to be speaking up and shifting the course of global history --
WEIR: Benji Backer grew up knocking on doors for John McCain and Mitt Romney as a kid and, in college, created the American Conservation Coalition. Do you support President Trump?
BACKER: I don't support President Trump's approach to the environment so far.
WEIR: A group built for green and frustrated young Republicans.
BACKER: And the fact that you have to have some government protections on human health and the environment protecting animals and wildlife -- that has to be there
Appearing live again in the studio, Weir and co-host John Berman discussed how this trend shows the young people are more "generational than ideological" on this issue. Because when you agree with the Left, you're suddenly non-ideological, just like the media.
