Van Jones: Trump’s Paris Pullout ‘One of the Dumbest Moves in Politics’ History, Nothing-Burger for Base

On Friday’s “Outfront” on CNN, former Obama administration green jobs czar and network contributor Van Jones said President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord was “one of the dumbest moves in politics” history and a “big nothing-burger”for his base.

Jones said, “Trump has said basically it took 25 years for 190 countries to come together and now he says he wants to start something on his own. Nobody is saying they want to do that. In fact, what has happened is exsactly what people predicted. He had created the biggest power vacuum on the planet by calling that press conference. And now you see China rushing forward, California rushing forward, and what he’s actually done is give a tremendous gift to his opponents. You see the emerging of what you can call a green growth alliance where cities and states and businesses and tribes and governments are coming together, going around the president of the United States. He gave away power.”

He continued, “The one thing nobody’s talked about is that he also threw his own base under the bus. His rustbelt base needs jobs. Had he doubled down, they could be building wind turbines right now, smart cars right now, smart batteries, solar panels. Instead, he gave all that away to Germany. He not only gave his opponents a huge opportunity he gave his base a big nothing burger when they could have had jobs. It was one of the dumbest moves in politics. It’s going to go down in history. Not just bad for the planet, bad for Donald Trump and his voters.”

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