TAMPA, FL - AUGUST 29: U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks during the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on August 29, 2012 in Tampa, Florida. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate during the RNC, which is scheduled to conclude August 30. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) File photo of Sen. Rand Paul. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., believes that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton does not have the “wisdom” to be president.

Speaking on Fox News‘ “Amercia’s Newsroom,” the potential Republican White House contender made the comment after Clinton claimed that climate change is one of America’s biggest threats.

“For her to be out there saying that the biggest threat to our safety and to our well-being is climate change, I think, goes to the heart of the matter or whether or not she has the wisdom to lead the country, which I think it’s obvious that she doesn’t,” Paul said on Fox News.

Clinton spoke about climate change Thursday at the annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. She explained that climate change presents “the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face.”

Paul, who is one of the front-runners among GOP politicians expected to run for the presidential nomination in 2016, added that he doesn’t think the U.S. wants someone as president who is fighting climate change instead of the other critical issues facing the country, like terrorism.

“I don’t think we really want a commander-in-chief who’s battling climate change instead of terrorism,” Paul stated. “She also has been out there stating that ISIS is not a threat and so not a threat to America. Those I think were here exact words. I believe a couple of months ago there was a quote from her saying that ISIS is not a threat to America.”

Paul thinks that Clinton’s comment about climate change demonstrate that she is not ready to be president.

The former secretary of state also said that the U.S. should become what she called the world’s 21st-century clean energy superpower, during remarks resembling both a campaign speech and a call to action.

“The data is unforgiving,” the former New York senator said to a standing room crowd of more than 800 people at a Las Vegas Strip resort. “No matter what the deniers try to assert. Sea levels are rising. Ice caps are melting. Storms, droughts and wildfires are wreaking havoc.”

“The threat is real but so is the opportunity,” she said.

Clinton, widely considered a leading Democratic candidate for president, used her speech to plug her book, “Hard Choices,” and the work of the Clinton Climate Initiative arm of a foundation founded in 2005 by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

She also segued into the topic of the day at the seventh annual green energy conference hosted by U.S. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Clinton credited northern Nevada’s selection for a $5 billion Tesla automobile battery plant to the emergence of Nevada as a leader in solar, wind and geothermal energy projects.

She also cited a quote by Robert Lang, director of Brookings Mountain West, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, comparing the promised investment in the Tesla plant near Reno to the importance of the 1930s Hoover Dam project on the Colorado River east of Las Vegas.

“Nevada was competitive because it had already invested in green energy, solar, geothermal and wind,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s speech to a standing-room crowd of more than 800 marked her return to the Las Vegas Strip hotel where a 36-year-old Phoenix woman was arrested in April after throwing a shoe but missing Clinton on stage. Security was tight, with federal agents and local police visible, and there was no similar disruption on Thursday.

Once, Clinton referred to the 112 countries she said she visited as secretary of state.

She said she came away optimistic about what the U.S. can do “when we decide we’re in the futures business in America.”

“If we come together to make the hard choices, the smart investment in infrastructure, technology and environmental protection, America can be the clean energy superpower for the 21st century,” she said.

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