Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) successfully flipped the script on “climate change” during Tuesday evening’s vice-presidential debate, as the moderators attempted to resurrect this left-wing talking point, likely unprepared for the way former President Donald Trump’s running mate brought it all back to the American worker and how Vice President Kamala Harris’s policies are leading to a dirtier environment.
“Let’s turn now to Hurricane Helene. The storm could become one of the deadliest on record,” moderator Norah O’Donnell said, citing scientists who claim “climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger and more deadly because of the historic rainfall.” She then cited CBS News polling, which found that seven in ten Americans “and more than 60 percent of Republicans under the age of 45 favor the US taking steps to try and reduce climate change.”
“Senator, what responsibility would the Trump administration have to try and reduce the impact of climate change?” she asked.
Vance first spoke about the victims of the “unbelievable, unspeakable” tragedy, offering prayers to them.
“I commit that when Donald Trump is president again, the government will put the citizens of this country first when they suffer from a disaster,” he promised. But then, instead of challenging the flawed premise of the question, Vance took a different approach.
“I think it’s important for us, first of all to say Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water. We want the environment to be cleaner and safer. But one of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is is a concern about carbon emissions, this idea that carbon emissions drives all the climate change,” Vance said.
“But let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument,” he said, pointing to the fact that Democrat policies are making things much worse, if they actually believe that this is true.
“Well, if you believe that, what would you … want to do? The answer is that you’d want to reshore as much American manufacturing as possible, and you’d want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we are the cleanest economy in the entire world,” he said.
That is true. Research shows reshoring American manufacturing cuts carbon emissions. And even the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified the U.S. as one of the cleanest nations on the planet.
Vance then flipped the issue, placing it squarely back on Democrats.
“Kamala Harris’s policies actually led to more energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas, more doing business in some of the dirtiest parts of the entire world. When I say that, I mean the amount of carbon emissions they’re doing per unit of economic output,” he said.
“So if we actually care about getting cleaner air and cleaner water, the best thing to do is to double down and invest in American workers and the American people,” Vance added. “And unfortunately, Kamala Harris has done exactly the opposite.”
In his rebuttal, Vance again pressed the point that Democrats and Harris truly believed what they were saying about climate change, they would bring more manufacturing and more energy production in the U.S.
“And that’s not what they’re doing. So clearly, Kamala Harris herself doesn’t believe her own rhetoric on this. If she did, she would actually agree with Donald Trump’s energy policies,” he noted.
Notably, a CBS poll taken after the debate shows Vance topping Walz in the debate.
