Wheel of Fortune Host Pat Sajak Backtracks From Climate-Change Tweet

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38th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards - Arrivals
Game-show host Pat Sajak arrives at the 38th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards held at the Las Vegas Hilton on June 19, 2011David Becker—Getty Images
By David Stout

Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak claims he was just joking when he tweeted on Monday that only “unpatriotic racists” subscribe to climate change.

Below is the tweet that caused the uproar online, after which the longtime television personality appeared to be trying to dodge the heat generated by his comment.

On Wednesday, Sajak took to his Twitter account and stated he only meant to “parody the name-calling directed at climate skeptics.”

As most of you know, original Tweet was intended to parody the name-calling directed at climate skeptics. Hyperbole. — Pat Sajak (@patsajak) May 21, 2014

However, Vice pointed out that Sajak has mocked climate change in the past, and regardless of his apology netizens fired back with their own tweets and parodies of Wheel of Fortune in response to Sajak.

The show has not made an official comment.

So @patsajak says his tweet was a parody of critiques of climate deniers. I thought he was supposed to be skilled at word games. — meg.matthews (@megmatthews) May 22, 2014

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