Washington Governor Jay Inslee appeared on “The View” Monday to discuss his 2020 presidential run, which is centered on climate change.
Meghan McCain was hoping to burn Inslee about the Green New Deal, but instead the plan backfired when she attempted to use ridiculous talking points like the one promoted at the past weekend’s CPAC conference that the plan will supposedly take away hamburgers.
McCain asked Inslee if he would support the plan even though a it “would cost $93 trillion or, to every person in this room, $600,000 for each of your households.”
She added: “When I hear that an average American is going to have to spend $600,000 for a Green New Deal, you can understand how people like me don’t think that’s logical.”
Inslee then politely explained to McCain that her claims were basically B.S. (though he didn’t use that particular term).
“Well, this is a lot like the death panels you heard about in Obamacare,” Inslee said. “We don’t have death panels and we don’t have $600,000 costs.”
McCain likely got the figures from a report by think tank American Action Forum, which published a study claiming that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would cost $93 trillion.
However, the study also said “the breadth of its proposals makes it daunting to assess the GND (Green New Deal) using the standard tools of policy analysis,” Since “many of the policies proposed in the GND are redundant with other aspects in it,” that “complicates a precise analysis, as the interactions are difficult to predict.”
McCain then tried to get Inslee in a “gotcha” moment with, again, talking points spouted by people who oppose the plan but aren’t actually in the plan.
For instance, Florida Senator Rick Scott claimed the deal would require the elimination of airplanes, but Politifact pointed out airplanes aren’t mentioned at all.
But McCain was on a roll.
“We’re talking about $51 trillion, the elimination of planes, the elimination of cows, a railway, no planes, I guess nobody can go to Hawaii anymore,” she said. “It doesn’t sound rational to me.”
Inslee then patiently explained that her claims were not accurate.
“It doesn’t sound rational because those are the things that Donald Trump said,” Inslee said. “We are not going to eliminate cars. We are not going to eliminate trains. We’re going to have what I have in my driveway today which is a blue GM Bolt made in Michigan with American workers.”
He also pointed out that airplanes may soon be able to fly using greener and cleaner biofuels and suggested the switch to solar, wind, and biofuels would be closer to when the telecommunications industry switched from rotary phones to cell phones.
McCain then tried once again claimed that the Green New Deal would force homeowners to spend $600,000 each.
Inslee insisted “that is not what’s proposed in the Green New Deal” to the cheers of audience members.
You can see the exchange below starting at the 4:44 mark.
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