In the years prior to his election, President Trump repeatedly referred to climate change as a “hoax” in tweets, speeches, and media interviewsJacobson, L. (2016, June 3). Yes, Donald Trump did call climate change a Chinese hoax. Retrieved from http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/.
However, as we reported during the primaries,Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Feinberg, G., & Rosenthal, S. (2016). Global Warming and the U.S. Presidential Election, Spring 2016. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/global-warming-u-s-presidential-election/ our spring 2016 national survey found that then-candidate Trump was out of sync with many of his supporters on the issue, many of whom said global warming is happening and supported government policies to reduce carbon pollution. Our latest survey, conducted just after Trump’s victory in the November election, investigated whether his general election voters agreed with his positions on global warming.