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U.S. Sen. Rick Scott kind of threw Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis under the bus during a Friday afternoon CNN discussion about Hurricane Helene.

The left has automatically attributed the hurricane’s Category 4 strength to climate change, despite hundreds of Category 4 hurricanes having hit the Atlantic basin over the past couple hundreds of years.

While appearing on CNN this Friday, Scott seemed to agree with leftist host Dana Bash when she too attributed Hurricane Helene to climate change. But by doing so, critics say he took a surreptitious shot at DeSantis, who’s an opponent of basing policy off of climate change.

Listen:

The discussion above began with Bash asking Scott his thoughts on whether Hurricane Helene was so large because of climate change.

“It was 420 miles wide at one point, which appears to be part of a trend where storms are simply bigger than they once were, perhaps because of the changing climate,” she said. “What are your thoughts on that.”

“Dana, you know, who knows, but you’re right,” Scott replied. “This was gigantic. And you know, the other thing that is — what it seems like what’s happening is the storm surge is getting worse. We had over 10 foot of storm surge in the Big Bend in some of these areas where, like Taylor County, we had 10 foot of storm surge. That’s massive amounts of water.”

“So, what — you know, the National Hurricane Center is doing unbelievable work, trying to educate people that don’t just think about the wind, think about the water. In Florida now, most of what you die from is water, not from wind. So, what’s happening is, is that — it’s water coming in and just floods in and that sucks everything out, including you, if you stayed around,” he added.

“Let’s think about Sanibel two years ago. So, you’re right. Something it, you know, who — you know, who knows what the reason is. But something is changing, massive storms, massive storm surge. So, we’ve got to figure this out, but — and we — but here’s the positive. We’re going to do it. We’re going to build more resiliently. We’re going to come back. And I live in a most wonderful state with wonderful people that are very resilient,” he continued.

Dovetailing off of what Scott said, Bash then made a direct link between Hurricane Helene and climate change.

“When you say something’s going on, isn’t it pretty obvious that the climate is changing, and that it’s changing the size of these storms and making them as big as you just described?” she asked.

“Dana, absolutely something’s changing and the climate is clearly changing,” Scott replied. “And what we got to do is, like, when I was governor, I spent a whole bunch of money on, you know, resilient sea level rise issues and beach renourishment issues and trying to make our state more resilient.”

“So, what we’ve got to do is, we know things — we know things are changing. We’ve got to figure out, how do we react to that? And so, in the short term, I’m talking today where I’m doing as I’m traveling state, talking to sheriffs, talking to first responders, keep joining, everything I can to keep people safe. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to figure out how to rebuild more resiliently,” he added.

The irony is that his appeasement of the left hasn’t reduced the left’s hatred for him one single bit.

Observe:

Regardless, critics say Scott’s words amount to a surreptitious attack on DeSantis because the governor is a staunch opponent of forcing climate change POLICIES down the throats of his state’s residents.

“He signed legislation earlier this year that erased the words ‘climate change’ from state statutes and restructured the state’s fossil fuel-based energy policy to play down climate change as a priority when making energy policy decisions,” the Florida Phoenix notes.

He’s defended these decisions by arguing that he wants the state’s energy policies “to be driven by affordability for Floridians and reliability,” not ideology.

“[After a storm], we need to get the lights back on,” he said over the summer. “We don’t want our policy driven by climate ideology.”

To be clear, DeSantis has never denied that the climate is changing. But he has argued that the changing climate shouldn’t mean imposing burdensome policies on the American people.

Vivek Saxena
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