August 31, 2017
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway is not about to talk climate change. At least not right now.
Conway, who hails from Camden County, was quick to silence a conversation on the subject during a prime-time interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo Wednesday night during which the two talked at length about Hurricane Harvey, the devastating storm that made landfall in Texas last week.
The two discussed funding relief efforts that will follow the storm that's killed more than 30 people, to which Conway issued reassurances that "the money will be there."
Cuomo then brought up climate change during the 18-minute-long interview and whether storms like Harvey "open up the discussion" on the subject, asking if President Donald Trump would be "open" to the conversation. Conway did not take the change in topic kindly.
“Chris, we’re trying to help the people whose lives are literally underwater and you want to have a conversation about climate change,” Conway said. "I'm not going to engage in that right now because I work for a president and a vice president and a country that is very focused on helping the millions of affected Texans and, God forbid, Louisianans."
Cuomo did not back down and pressed that the "cause of the storm matters."
"Imagine if we could find ways to reduce the number of these storms," he said. "Imagine if we could figure out why a 100-year storm seems to happen every other year."
Conway criticized Cuomo for "play[ing] climatologist."
“Here’s the deal,” Conway continued. “You play amateur climatologist tonight and I will play professional helper to those in need and continue in my job here, as counselor to the president, to help listen to the Cabinet members, the president, the vice president, [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], [the Department of Homeland Security] and others, [like] Gen. [John] Kelly, who could not be a better chief of staff equipped for a matter like Harvey since he was at DHS and is accustomed to large-scale operations as such.”
Harvey slammed parts of the U.S. last week as a Category 4 hurricane that brought 24.5 trillion gallons of water along the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump announced his decision to pull the country from the Paris climate agreement, which joins nations together to fight climate change and cope with its effects, back in June.
Watch the spat between Cuomo and Conway below:
