The climate "goes back and forth, back and forth,” President Donald Trump said. | Evan Vucci/AP photo white house Trump says he has 'natural instinct for science' when it comes to climate change

President Donald Trump told the Associated Press that he has a "natural instinct for science" that informs his understanding of climate change and allows him to see through the political bias that he accused some scientists of holding.

In his interview, published Wednesday, the president reiterated his belief that the climate is changing but argued that the climate "goes back and forth, back and forth." He claimed that scientists are divided on whether climate change is the result of human activity, even though the vast majority of climate scientists believe that it is.


"You have scientists on both sides of it. My uncle was a great professor at MIT for many years, Dr. John Trump," the president said. "And I didn’t talk to him about this particular subject, but I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture."

Trump's comments to the AP came in response to remarks he made in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," in which the president admitted that climate change is not a hoax, but also said he believes that it may not be "man-made."

Earlier this month, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report saying that the planet will reach 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels as soon as 2030, which could increase the risk for extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people.

The president said that he is "an environmentalist."

"Everything I want and everything I have is clean. Clean is very important — water, air," he said. "I want absolutely crystal clear water and I want the cleanest air on the planet and our air now is cleaner than it’s ever been. Very important to me."

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But he added that he is unwilling to take steps that might slow the U.S. economy in order to combat climate change.

"What I’m not willing to do is sacrifice the economic well-being of our country for something that nobody really knows," he said.