As the founder of the world’s largest asset manager acknowledged earlier this month, the consequences of climate change will be so disastrous that even Wall Street, which has typically only cared about making money, must fundamentally alter how it does business, aggressively moving away from fossil fuel investments and into companies that have plans “for operating under a scenario where the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to less than two degrees is fully realized.” Given the alternative—a severe economic and humanitarian crisis that the federal government has predicted will lop as much as 10% off the size of the American economy by the end of the century—a reporter thought it appropriate to ask Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin if he believed the U.S. must fully divest from fossil fuels, a move supported by, among others, 17-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, but not exactly embraced by Donald Trump.

Speaking from Davos, Switzerland, Mnuchin responded to the question with a thoughtful answer that recognized the concerns of Thunberg and her generation, not to mention other living beings who’d prefer not to see the earth die in a fire. Just messing with you, of course. Instead he offered a characteristically smarmy take that surely earned points with the boss but left others concluding that, yes, Mnuchin is that big of an asshole.

“Is she the chief economist or who is she? I’m confused,” Mnuchin said, before adding it was “a joke. That was funny.” He went on: “After she goes and studies economics in college, she can come back and explain that to us.” Keeping the laugh track going, Mnuchin later claimed to CNBC’s Joe Kernen that, actually, the Trump administration is all about tacking climate change. “Our environmental policies are misunderstood,” the secretary insisted. “The president absolutely believes in clean air and clean water. He supports a clean environment.”

Thunberg responded to Mnuchin’s comments on Twitter, underscoring the fact that he, like Trump, is a sad, out-of-touch old man:

Thursday wasn’t the first time even this week that a member of the administration took a shot at the Swedish teenager. On Tuesday, in a prepared speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump took the opportunity to swipe at Thunberg—who was in the audience—and mock the “perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse,” calling them “the errors of yesterday’s fortune-tellers.” But hey, maybe Mnuchin is right! Perhaps Thunberg should tick off certain academic and professional boxes before being allowed to express an opinion. If she were following in his footsteps, for instance, those milestones would include: