The attack against the non-partisan CBO is just one example of many key, American institutions now under fire by Republicans. David Roberts, climate and politics journalist from Vox.com, joins us to today to discuss the recent comments made with CNBC's Joe Kernan by Donald Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, pretending that he doesn't know that scientists determined long ago that carbon dioxide is the primary driver for man-made climate change.
But outrage over those fallacious remarks and Pruitt's dismissal of basic scientific facts misses the bigger point, Roberts explains. "If the science was going to settle anything, it would have settled it by now," he says. The issue is not about facts or science, but about the Republican Party itself and their on-going assaults on our nation's institutions — from science to government to academia to journalism to, yes, the CBO.
"If it wasn't Scott Pruitt, it would be someone else who denies climate change," as head of Trump's EPA, Roberts argues. "That's what the party is. It's one major party, in the US — alone among major parties in the developed democratic world, alone, completely idiosyncratic and unique in this — den[ying] that climate change is happening and that humans are causing it. So if Pruitt outrages you, the proper target of your outrage is the party. He's just a party functionary. If it wasn't him, it'd be someone else."
Roberts discusses why that denial is so important to the party, and whether or not even they believe their own nonsense anymore. Finally today, speaking of climate change denial: Some very encouraging news when it comes to renewable energy in the US (don't tell Donald Trump or the Republicans) and some bad news in court for Sec. of State and former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
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