Nikki Haley says 'Trump believes the climate is changing' and 'pollutants are part of the equation'

last updated 4 June 2017

"President Trump believes the climate is changing and he believes pollutants are part of the equation," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told CNN's Jake Tapper in an interview that taped Saturday and aired in full on Sunday. "Just because we got out of a club doesn't mean we don't care about the environment," she added.

These comments were more direct than those from EPA chief Scott Pruitt, though Haley echoed his phrasing in saying Trump believes "the climate changes" rather than "in climate change."

Haley also argued a main reason Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement is he wanted to be honest about what could realistically be accomplished. The climate pact terms former President Obama negotiated weren't "achievable, even if we had stayed in the Paris Agreement, and this is the part everyone needs to think about," Haley said, "If we had stayed in the Paris Agreement ... what President Obama submitted the U.S. to was not achievable under our standards or any other country's standards, and then we've got to look at the fact we didn't want to be in violation of the agreement."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox