Vice President Mike Pence applauds as U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Knight Craft. Photo : Alex Brandon ( AP )

President Donald Trump has announced that he will nominate Kelly Knight Craft to fill the role of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The president tweeted the announcement Friday, adding that Craft “has done an outstanding job representing our Nation and I have no doubt that, under her leadership, our Country will be represented at the highest level.”




Craft, currently the U.S. ambassador to Canada, would fill a role that’s been open since the departure of Nikky Haley toward the end of last year if she’s confirmed. Craft and her husband Joe Craft, the president and CEO of coal producer Alliance Resource, are known Republican donors. She received a resounding statement of support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who called her nomination on his recommendation an “exceptional choice for this critical post.”

Aside from their political affiliations, however, McConnell and Craft share something else in common: They’re both dodgy as hell on matters relating to climate change. Speaking with Canada’s CBC News in 2017, Craft was asked whether she believed in climate change and appeared to pull a page from Trump’s playbook.


“I believe there are scientists on both sides that are accurate,” she said. “I think that both sides have their own results from their studies and I appreciate and I respect both sides of the science.” One has to wonder which studies she’s referring to here .

In the same interview, Craft also defended the Trump administration on climate change, stating that “the president and all of the cabinet have the best interest of what is good for the United States and what is good for our environment.” If you’re scratching your head and wondering if we are talking about the same president who pulled the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, don’t worry, she addressed that too.

“I know the approach may seem different, but we all have the same goal,” Craft said. “And that is to better our environment and to maintain the environment. Therefore I feel like our administration has been on top of this whether or not they would be pulling out.”

Should she be confirmed, it seems a good place for Craft to start would be brushing up on the U.N.’s own climate report. Then again, remaining a fossil fuels shill appears to be working for everyone else.


[Twitter]