President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement was highly controversial on Thursday, with Democrats and even some Republicans opposing the move. MSNBC, anxious to bring on a level headed dissenter from Trump’s decision, brought Donny Deutsch onto Nicolle Wallace’s Deadline: White House.
Deutsch, wasting no time in casting aspersions at his political opponents, articulately described Trump as a “dangerous little man”. Such words of eloquent contempt were not enough for Mr. Deutsch, who proceeded to call the President a “backward” and “uneducated man”:
I don't think Donald Trump understands these CEOs are think about their global companies. They're not saying, what is best for -- he is such a backward man. He's such an uneducated man.
Deutsch, valiantly refusing to stray from DNC talking points, reminded Wallace of the obvious opportunity for the Trump campaign to deflect from the Russia narrative. To her credit, Wallace was steadfast in proving MSNBC’s blind partisanship:
DEUTSCH: Had he gone any other direction, and by block three we'd be back to Russia.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Let me-- We're actually getting back to Russia in block two.
Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union was invited to provide support for the leaving the accord, and he proceeded to give a solid, sober conservative response on the matter. Wallace then asked Schlapp more broadly if he believed in climate change, and he responded this way:
I believe that the climate fluctuates, absolutely, and sometimes we go through periods of time when it gets warmer and sometimes we go through periods of time when it gets colder. I do not believe that these carbon caps, and taxing carbon and constraining carbon will result in much difference on the temperature gauge and I think every scientific study shows it. All of these -- all of these goals, if you actually look at the impact on the temperature, they are so slight and why are we shedding our jobs for tiny, tiny possible improvements in the temperature?
Schlapp’s cautious skepticism was too much for Deutsch, supposedly armed with years of experience as a climate scientist (he's not), who pontificated on humanity’s certain doom:
DEUTSCH: Matt, first of all -- I'm sorry--
SCHLAPP: Please.
DEUTSCH: Even tiny improvements, if we go 3.6% warmer, the world ends.
The two exchanged rounds of verbal sparring that ended, fittingly, with a full-on devolution into a schoolyard brawl:
SCHLAPP: That's not true.
DEUTSCH: That is true.
SCHLAPP: That is not true.
DEUTSCH: Every scientific-- Matt, and, by the way --
SCHLAPP: Donny, you sound like a crazy Christian preacher saying the End is near.
DEUTSCH: No, you sound like a crazy Trump advocate who that just drinks whatever he sells. And that's what you sound like, sir.
After the rigorous scholasticism embodied in the passionate/pathetic interchange, the rest of the segment seemed awash with normalcy, as Schlapp went back to bread and butter conservatism while Deutsch claimed that those who disagree with him on health care policy want “20 million people” to die. It's tough to say which modus operandi is preferable.
Read the full June 1 transcript below:
4:20 PM ET
DONNY DEUTSCH: I have such rage and sadness. We just watched a dangerous little man give a very, very scary speech.
(…)
4:22 PM ET
DEUTSCH: I don't think Donald Trump understands these CEOs are think about their global companies. They're not saying, what is best for -- he is such a backward man. He's such an uneducated man. And the fact that, to your point, Steve Bannon has risen again. And I also, my more cynical viewpoint, the more dramatic he got today, the less we talk about Russia. Interestingly enough.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Right.
DEUTSCH: Had he gone any other direction, and by block three we'd be back to Russia.WALLACE: Let me-- We're actually getting back to Russia in block two. Let me bring in my friend, Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, who tweeted earlier in the day that you were invited to be at the Rose Garden speech and I’m guessing you have a different take on today’s news.
MATT SCHLAPP: Oh yeah, completely. Look, I think that this is-- it's like there are two worlds out there, and I think whether or not the elected Democrat leaning mayor of Pittsburgh agrees with this or not, there are a lot of people in states like Michigan and Pittsburgh and Ohio and Wisconsin, my home state of Kansas, a lot of people across this country who have felt like they've been struggling, and one of the reasons they feel like they're struggling is they don't feel the economic prospects of the recovery that we've seen over the last several years. They haven't seen an increase in their take-home pay. And the one thing every piece of concrete legislation on climate that has tried to be pushed through the congress, the one thing that's enduring is that energy prices will increase and that it disproportionately hits the working class and there are less of those types of jobs available for those folks, and I think the American people want the responsible things done on questions like climate and energy usage and not being wasteful, but they're tired of having to shed their own economic opportunity for somebody else's environmental ideal. In America, we're much more practical, and I think we should approach this from a very practical standpoint.
(…)
4:26 PM ET
WALLACE: Do think -- do you believe in climate change?
SCHLAPP: I believe that the climate fluctuates, absolutely, and sometimes we go through periods of time when it gets warmer and sometimes we go through periods of time when it gets colder. I do not believe that these carbon caps, and taxing carbon and constraining carbon will result in much difference on the temperature gauge and I think every scientific study shows it. All of these -- all of these goals, if you actually look at the impact on the temperature, they are so slight and why are we shedding our jobs for tiny, tiny possible improvements in the temperature?
DEUTSCH: Matt, first of all -- I'm sorry.
SCHLAPP: Please.
DEUTSCH: Even tiny improvements, if we go 3.6% warmer, the world ends. So tiny increments --
SCHLAPP: That's not true.
DEUTSCH: That is true.
SCHLAPP: That is not true.
DEUTSCH: Every scientific-- Matt, and, by the way --
SCHLAPP: Donny, you sound like a crazy Christian preacher saying the end is near.
DEUTSCH: No, you sound like a crazy Trump advocate who that just drinks whatever he sells. And that's what you sound like, sir.
