During President Trump’s closing remarks in front of the press at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the President took some questions from reporters about the forum and global issues. One reporter asked bout climate change conspiracy theorist and provocateur, 17-year-old Greta Thunberg.
The reporter told the President, “You were the keynote speaker here, but you shared the spotlight with a Scandanavian teenager, Greta Thunberg.” Trump casually remarked, “Oh, that’s very nice.”
The reporter continued, “…who you had said needs to work on her anger.” Trump responded, saying, “I didn’t say ‘anger,’ I said ‘anger management.’”
The reporter continued, “Yes, anger management. She has some very harsh words on the United States and other industrialized countries need to do more. Do you still feel that you’re going enough?”
Trump responded, “How old is she?” The reporter answered him, “She’s seventeen now.” Trump shook his head and chuckled, “Oh, that’s good. She beat me out on Time Magazine.”
The reporter asked another follow-up question, “Do you hear from other world leaders and business leaders that think she has a message…”
“No, I didn’t actually. But I would have loved to have seen her speak. I did not,” said Trump.
He continued, telling the press, “I think that some people… put [environmentalism] at a level that is unrealistic to a point you can’t live your lives. We want to have the cleanest water on earth, we want to have the cleanest air on earth, our numbers as you saw—we had record numbers come out recently. Our numbers are very, very good. Our environmental numbers—our water numbers, our numbers on air are tremendous. We have to do something about other continents. We have to do something about other countries. When we’re clean and beautiful and everything is good, but you have anther continent where the fumes are rising at levels where you can’t believe—I think Greta ought to focus on those places. But we are doing better right now than we have ever done in terms of cleanliness, in terms of numbers. We have a beautiful ocean called the Pacific Ocean with thousands and thousands of tons of garbage flows toward us, and that’s put there by other countries. So I think Greta has to start working on those other countries.”
At Thunberg’s speech on Tuesday, she tried to scold global leaders, claiming they were responsible for the massive fires in Australia. She told them, “Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.”