President Donald Trump’s announcement Thursday that he’s withdrawing America from the Paris agreement was approximately 2,000 words long, but not once did he utter the phrase “climate change.” This was no accident, but a new, coordinated messaging tactic from the White House to avoid admitting that the president still believes that climate science is a hoax. On five occasions in the day leading up to Trump’s Rose Garden speech and in the hours afterward, senior White House officials and the president himself refused to answer direct questions about whether Trump accepts the scientific fact that climate change is real, harmful, and caused by humans.

On Wednesday, the day before Trump announced his decision, Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about Trump’s beliefs on climate science. “Honestly, I haven’t asked him,” he said. “I can get back to you.”

The same day, Trump himself dodged the question twice in a gaggle with White House pool reporters.

This is almost physically painful to read pic.twitter.com/9S1OKVauFi — Emily Atkin (@emorwee) June 1, 2017

After Trump’s announcement on Thursday afternoon, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt went on CNN and refused, three times, to say whether Trump thinks man-made climate change is real. “This is not about whether climate change is occurring or not,” Pruitt said.

At about the same time, on a call with reporters, a senior White House official said he had “not talked to the president” about his personal beliefs on climate change. He then made a similar argument as Pruitt’s, saying the question about Trump’s beliefs was not “on topic.”

