On a panel at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., this week, Happer criticized suburban Republican women who polls have shown are more concerned about climate change than rank-and-file Republicans overall, the vast majority of whom place climate as a low, if not the lowest priority for the federal government to be dealing with.

Said Happer, "Let me say a little about Republican women and housewives: They've been brainwashed. [...] What are they supposed to believe? They've got Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore and other great scientists explaining this and Bill Nye the Science Guy, well, what else do you expect them to think, and so we've done this to ourselves."

What else but this kind of condescension should be expected from this emeritus Princeton physics professor who was once chair of the George C. Marshall Institute, a right-wing disinformation outfit that disputes the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists not by exposing errors in their studies but by inventing lies and spreading smears.

Happer, who founded the CO 2 Coalition to promote more fossil fuel consumption, was brought aboard by Trump, who calls climate change a “hoax,” with the idea that the professor would demolish the findings of the intelligence community that the climate crisis negatively affects national security, something the Pentagon, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and all the military service branches have been saying for years.

The good news, if Happer is correct, is that all we must do to avoid having to watch Trump’s Climate Apprentice show next February is fire him this November.