Pompeo ‘can’t rank’ climate change on list of national security threats

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that he can’t rank climate change on a list of national security challenges.

ABC News’s “This Week” host Jon Karl asked the secretary where he would list climate change, following Pompeo’s recent comments that it was not in the “top five.”

“I can’t rank it … I can’t tell you exactly which number,” Pompeo said.

“As secretary of State, my job is to make sure our national security never wavers,” he said. “That’s what we’ll do.”

“I can’t rank it … I can’t tell you exactly which number,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells @jonkarl when asked where he would rank climate change among national security challenges https://t.co/0VRfgJOgdF pic.twitter.com/gGdmwudTOy

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 5, 2019

Pompeo told Fox News in March that he wouldn’t put global warming or climate change in a list of top five threats to the nation, placing threats from international adversaries above.

{mosads}The interview comes days after The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration pushed to have references to climate change removed from an international statement on Arctic policy.

Karl pressed Pompeo on that report, asking: “What are you doing specifically to address this threat? Or do you not take it seriously?”

“This administration takes keeping Americans safe, keeping our drinking water pure, keeping our air clean very very seriously,” Pompeo responded, arguing that the document in question had to do with the Paris climate agreement, which he says has not been effective.