During an interview with horrifying POS Piers Morgan at the Davos summit, Trump told a whopper of a lie when asked whether he believed in global warming. But you have to wade through a typically moronic word salad to get to the one clear statement, which was a lie.





MORGAN: Do you believe in climate change? Do you believe it exists? TRUMP: There is a cooling, and there is a heating, and I mean, look — it used to not be climate change. It used to be global warming. Right? MORGAN: Right. TRUMP: That wasn’t working too well, because it was getting too cold all over the place. The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records, so okay, they’re at a record level. There were so many things happening, Piers. I’ll tell you what I believe in. I believe in clear air. I believe in crystal clear beautiful water. I believe in just having good cleanliness in all.

Okay, first let’s all roll our eyes once again as Trump reaches for one of his favorite rhetorical devices. Everything is “beautiful.” I’m surprised he didn’t declare that he loves water, his other favorite bit of meaningless tripe (“We love the military. We love the people of (insert state or city here)”). I mean, many people say that he loves beautiful clean water. Bigly. His love for it is yuuuuuuuge.

Now to the lie. Yes, the ice caps are at “record levels,” but those records are the exact opposite of what he’s claiming. PolitiFact rates this a pants on fire lie.

Trump is wrong that the ice caps are at record levels. In March 2017, NASA published a news brief with the headline, “Sea Ice Extent Sinks to Record Lows at Both Poles.” Researcher Julienne Stroeve with the National Snow and Ice Data Center said Trump’s claim was “odd.” Stroeve said polar ice is at “a record low in the Arctic (around the North Pole) right now and near record low in the Antarctic (around the South Pole).” The National Snow and Ice Data Center gathers data under contracts with NASA, the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For both the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, the extent of the ice is down from the 30-year average. The key difference between the two polar zones is that the levels have bounced around more in Antarctica.

None of this will matter, of course. Like all 2000+ lies he’s told since taking office, his supporters will accept it with limitless ignorance and credulity and they’ll dismiss the actual evidence as “fake news.” That’s the real purpose of Trump’s — and the conservative movement in general — attacks on the media. It’s designed to inoculate their followers against the nefarious influence of facts and evidence. Once you’ve insulated your followers from reality, you can sell them any fantasy you want that serves your purposes.