President Donald Trump asserted that he had “very high levels of intelligence,” and as such, did not believe in the scientific consensus surrounding climate change in a sweeping interview with The Washington Post published Tuesday. “One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers,” said Trump, speaking to the Post’s Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker. “You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean. ... As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it — not nearly like it is.” Trump’s statements, his latest in a long history of climate change denial, go against the vast majority of scientists who say the planet has rapidly warmed since the Industrial Revolution and will continue to do so unless humanity is able to dramatically scale back greenhouse gas emissions. Without such action, the planet faces a slew of devastating effects, including a mass die-off of coral reefs; an increase in the severity of natural disasters, such as wildfires; and a global economic hit in the trillions of dollars, according to a recent United Nations study. The White House released its own sweeping National Climate Assessment on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The 1,656-page report, compiled by 13 federal agencies and more than 300 researchers, painted the bleakest portrait of the future United States yet, noting that the country had already warmed 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century and will warm a further 3 degrees by 2100 unless fossil fuel use is scaled back. Predictions even said that warming could approach 9 degrees or more by the end of the century.

Bloomberg via Getty Images White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that the recent National Climate Assessment was "not based on facts." The report was compiled by 13 federal agencies and more than 300 researchers.