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President Donald Trump told Texans bailing themselves out from Hurricane Harvey's floods that the storm, which caused the most extreme rainstorm on record, was an unprecedented event. 。
And when Hurricane Irma ramped up to a Category 5 monster in the Atlantic, Trump tweeted that the storm "Looks like the largest ever recorded in the Atlantic!" 。
In fact, Hurricane Irma did set a record for the most intense storm, with maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, ever observed in the Atlantic Ocean outside the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean. 。
SEE ALSO:Tropical Storm Harvey raises red flags on infrastructure, climate planning 。Yet when a reporter asked Trump on Thursday whether the two hurricanes, which were aided by warming ocean and air temperatures, as well as added moisture in the air, have caused him to reevaluate his views on climate change, Trump directly contradicted himself. 。
Turns out, these events were totally normal!
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According to a White House transcript, a reporter asked: "Mr. President, the severity of these storms -- the one in Florida, the one in Texas -- has that made you rethink your views of climate change?" 。" 。
This prompted Trump to instantly snap into climate denier mode. 。
"Well, we've had bigger storms than this," Trump said while on board Air Force One en route to Washington, after viewing the damage from Hurricane Irma, which hit the Florida Keys as a Category 4 storm, in southwest Florida. 。
"And if you go back into the 1930s and the 1940s, and you take a look, we've had storms over the years that have been bigger than this," he said.
"If you go back into the teens, you’ll see storms that were as big or bigger. So we did have two horrific storms, epic storms. But if you go back into the ‘30s and ‘40s, and you go back into the teens, you’ll see storms that were very similar and even bigger, okay?" 。
So which is it -- they can't be both record-breaking and unprecedented, while at the same time paling in comparison to tropical cyclones in the 1930s and '40s?
The answer, it seems, depends on whether the question includes the dreaded "double c" term: climate change. The hypocrisy of the White House's views on this has never been more apparent. 。
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