Anthony Scaramucci said he believes the president is not particularly concerned with Robert Mueller's ongoing Russia investigation | Getty Scaramucci: Trump doesn't deny climate change

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's tweet last week on climate change as a common-sense statement.

"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against," Trump wrote Thursday on Twitter. "Bundle up!"


Critics observed that the president didn't seem to understand the distinction between weather and climate — or that a few days of freezing cold were not going to prove anything about climate.

Scaramucci defended Trump's remarks, telling CNN's Dana Bush on "State of the Union" that he was not a denier of climate change, just an opponent of the Paris climate accord. Earlier this year, Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, which is designed to combat global warming.

"I think you guys should ask him directly if he's a climate change denier or not. I think you will find you will be surprised by that answer," he said of Trump.

"He didn’t want to just sign it and go along with the crowd," said Scaramucci, who said he expected the president to be proved right on the issue: "My prediction is, is that some time at the end of 2018, people will look back at him and say, wow, he had a lot of common sense by getting out of that climate accord."

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Scaramucci also joked to Bash: "It is freezing here on this beautiful Sunday morning."

On other issues, Scaramucci said he believes the president is not particularly concerned with Robert Mueller's ongoing Russia investigation.

"I know that he's not worried about it," he said, adding that he thinks Trump is "frustrated about it."

Scaramucci also said: "Washington has this magnificent way of finding scandals to hit people with to distract them from their agendas. The great news about the president is: He's undistracted, he's undeterred, and I think he is going to have a phenomenal 2018."

