During an interview with Secretary of State John Kerry at a State Department climate forum on Tuesday, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell urged the Secretary to slam the GOP: “Republican candidates are not only silent on the subject, they are climate deniers. And even candidates who led the way in 2008, the nominee [John McCain], is now silent on the subject because of Tea Party challenges to himself and to others.”
Kerry ranted: “...when I hear a United States senator say, ‘I'm not a scientist so I can't make a judgment,’ or a candidate for president, for that matter, I'm absolutely astounded. It's incomprehensible that a grown-up who has been to high school and college in the United States of America disqualifies themselves because they're not a scientist...”
He then made a prediction about the 2016 presidential race: “...it seems to me that they disqualify themselves fundamentally from high public office with those kinds of statements. And I think the American people will decide that this year because the American people are overwhelmingly in favor of doing something about climate change.”
After playing a clip of the exchange on her MSNBC show, Mitchell declared: “John Kerry, unleashed.”
Here is a transcript of the October 20 segment on Andrea Mitchell Reports:
12:47 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: And at a State Department conference on climate change this morning, John Kerry argued it's one of the top national security crises facing the nation and the world. So I asked him how he squares that with the political statements made by some of the candidates this year, including Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
MITCHELL [TO KERRY]: You have a leading Republican candidate who tweeted out that – on the first day of fall, the first cold weather – that this was proof that we need more global warming. You have Republican candidates –
JOHN KERRY: That’s really good science.
MITCHELL: Republican candidates are not only silent on the subject, they are climate deniers. And even candidates who led the way in 2008, the nominee [John McCain], is now silent on the subject because of Tea Party challenges to himself and to others.
In the Democratic Party, you have many labor interests that are pressing also against restrictions on coal and other fossil fuels. So you've got gridlock in both parties and an election year where this is not even being discussed.
KERRY: Well, it will be discussed. I'm confident of that, once we get through the primaries, because I know that whoever it is nominated by the Democratic Party is going to make this a very important part of our choice for the country.
But beyond that, you know, I’ve heard this, I mean I’ve debated it on the floor of the Senate, I’ve heard it, I testified before the Environment Committee, so I know all the counter arguments to it. But when I hear a United States senator say, “I'm not a scientist so I can't make a judgment,” or a candidate for president, for that matter, I'm absolutely astounded.
It's incomprehensible that a grown-up who has been to high school and college in the United States of America disqualifies themselves because they're not a scientist when they learned the Earth rotates on its axis, but they're not a scientist. Where they’ve learned the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and it does so 24 hours a day. You can run the list of things we know science tells us happens, and we accept it every single day, and to suggest that when, you know, more than 6,000-plus peer-reviewed studies of the world's best scientists all lay out that this is happening and mankind is contributing to it, it seems to me that they disqualify themselves fundamentally from high public office with those kinds of statements.
And I think the American people will decide that this year because the American people are overwhelmingly in favor of doing something about climate change.
MITCHELL: John Kerry, unleashed.
