Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) slammed the media on Sunday for “politicizing the weather” and blaming Hurricane Idalia on climate change.
After touring hurricane damage in Florida on Saturday, President Joe Biden asserted that “nobody intelligent can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore.” Then, at a press conference on Sunday, a reporter asked DeSantis about Biden’s remarks as well as the remarks from other media talking heads who are blaming weather events on climate change.
The Florida governor responded by quickly shutting down the leftist narrative.
“The notion that somehow hurricanes are something new, that’s just false. And we’ve got to stop politicizing the weather and stop politicizing natural disasters,” he responded.
The governor cited two powerful hurricanes that struck Florida: a 1896 storm that followed nearly the same path and had the same estimated strength as Idalia and the Labor Day hurricane in 1935, one of the most deadly and most powerful storms ever to strike the U.S. These hurricanes, DeSantis suggested, are two examples that prima facie disprove the narrative that climate change is causing more intense storms.
DeSantis also tackled the political component of the progressive claims about policy and climate change.
“The notion that somehow if we just adopt very left-wing policies at the federal level, that somehow we will not have hurricanes, that is a lie,” DeSantis said.
“And that is people trying to take what’s happened with different types of storms and use that as a pretext to advance their agenda on the backs of people who are suffering,” he continued. “And that’s wrong, and we’re not going to do that in the state of Florida.”
The governor was criticized for allegedly “snubbing” Biden over the weekend. The president claimed that DeSantis helped plan Biden’s visit, but DeSantis’ office said he never had plans to meet with Biden because the logistical operations of presidential travel would disrupt recovery efforts.
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