--- title: Does Donald Trump Still Think Climate Change is a Hoax? description: As a private citizen, Donald Trump didn't mince words: Climate change was a hoax. But as president, he's gone silent on the question. canonical: https://time.com/4959233/donald-trump-climate-change-hoax-question/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-27T16:19:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:37:22.541Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Won't Say If He Still Thinks Climate Change Is a Hoax. Here's Why og:description: He's gone silent on the question since moving to the White House og:url: https://time.com/4959233/donald-trump-climate-change-hoax-question/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6476c68c80017990/6988d004196cf4037104069e/trump1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: President Trump To Order Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Won't Say If He Still Thinks Climate Change Is a Hoax. Here's Why twitter:description: He's gone silent on the question since moving to the White House twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6476c68c80017990/6988d004196cf4037104069e/trump1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Won't Say If He Still Thinks Climate Change Is a Hoax. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Sep 27, 2017 4:19 PM UTC  President Trump speaks during an announcement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on June 1, 2017. President Trump speaks during an announcement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on June 1, 2017.T.J. Kirkpatrick—Bloomberg/ Getty Images by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Sep 27, 2017 4:19 PM UTC As a private citizen, Donald Trump didn’t mince words: Climate change was a hoax. Since 2011, the New York real estate mogul tweeted his skepticism of climate change at least 115 times, according to [a count by Vox](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15726472/trump-tweets-global-warming-paris-climate-agreement), including multiple times when he referred to it as a hoax. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/408977616926830592) On the campaign trail before the 2016 election, he was just as clear. “So Obama’s talking about all of this with the global warming and the—a lot of it’s a hoax, it’s a hoax,” he said in [a December 2015 speech](http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article55604115.html) in South Carolina. I mean, it’s a money-making industry, okay? It’s a hoax, a lot of it.” But since he moved into the White House, Trump has gone silent on this specific charge. Even at his press conference announcing he would pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, Trump never said that climate change was not real, instead arguing that the deal was bad for Americans and wouldn’t do enough to help the environment. “Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals,” [he said](http://www.npr.org/2017/06/01/531090243/trumps-speech-on-paris-climate-agreement-withdrawal-annotated). “As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States.” So what happened? The answer may have something to do with a Supreme Court case which found that the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change are covered by the Clean Air Act. 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