As the first US presidential debate is over between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic bet Hillary Clinton, many issues have been discussed and answered by the two presidential candidates. Issues on job creation, racial division in America and the country's security against threats of terrorism were the three topics discussed during the debate.
But one issue that was hotly discussed is the issue on climate change. Ahead of the debate, Trump's position on the issue has been clear - he called it a "hoax" on Twitter and in several of his pronouncements during the campaign. Yet it seems that the billionaire mogul forgot all about that - it took Clinton for him to get out of his self-induced amnesia.
According to PolitiFact, Clinton never missed mentioning Trump's announcement "that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese". "I think it's real. I think science is real", Clinton said during the debate. But Trump cut off Clinton's claim saying, "I did not - I did not - I do not say that. I do not say that".
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
The report also says that Clinton is right on this one. Trump did mention that climate change is a hoax. He first mentioned it on his Twitter account on November 06, 2012. He again tweeted it on January 25 and 29, 2014. And when he appeared during the episode of "Fox & Friends" on January 18, 2016 he said that the tweet is a joke but he added that China benefits on this because they didn't do anything about it.
In a separate report by the Huffington Post, Trump mentioned that they brought up Solyndra in 2009 to produce clean energy but the program never succeeded. Trump also blasted Clinton on classifying climate change as a "major security threat" to the US. But the report says that during President George W. Bush's term, the National Intelligence Assessment did claim that climate change would create national security problems in the country.
Nevertheless, Trump's claim and announcement that he "didn't remember" anything he say about climate change will hurt him for now. The second presidential debate will be on October 09 and the third one will be on October 19.
