Trump wants a talk-radio host to be the USDAās chief scientist
Yesterday, the Trump administration formally named its candidate for the Department of Agricultureās undersecretary of research, education, and economics, a post that serves as the agencyās chief scientist. Its choice? Sam Clovis, who has no scientific background but is notable primarily for having been a conservative talk-radio host. If approved by the Senate, the USā attempts to understand climate changeās impact on agriculture will be led by someone who called climate research ājunk science.ā
Clovis, who has also taught economics and management at an Iowa liberal arts college, was an early supporter of Trumpās candidacy. Heās been working at the USDA as a White House advisor since shortly after Trumpās inauguration. Suggestions that heād be nominated to this position have been circulating for a while, but his official nomination only came yesterday.
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In 2014, when Clovis was running for senate in Iowa, he did an interview with the stateās public radio station in which he was asked about climate change. After the interviewer highlighted the widespread acceptance of climate change within the scientific community, Clovis responded by saying, in effect, that scientists were trying to fool him. āI have looked at the science, and I have enough of a science background to know when Iām being boofed,ā he said. (Pro Publica checked and found that Clovis had never even taken an undergraduate level course in any science.)
Trump has an infallible ability to find the worst possible person to fill every government post.