Walz calls out Trump’s support to Big Oil in debate with Vance

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz used the climate portion of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate with Republican Sen. JD Vance to lambast GOP nominee Donald Trump’s pledge to give the oil and gas industry free rein in exchange for a billion dollars in campaign donations.

That offer is the subject of an ongoing Senate investigation.

Walz said, “Donald Trump called it a hoax and then joked that these things would make more beachfront property to be able to invest in.” 

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate continued, “To call it a hoax and to take the oil company executives to Mar-a-Lago, say, ‘Give me money for my campaign and I’ll let you do whatever you want’ — we can be smarter about that.”

Walz’s remarks came in response to a question from CBS moderator Norah O’Donnell, who asked what the youth-led Sunrise Movement called perhaps “the best climate questions ever in a presidential or vice presidential debate.”

O’Donnell connected the climate crisis to Hurricane Helene, which recently left a trail of destruction across six states and killed more than 160 people.

She noted that “scientists say climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger, and more deadly because of the historic rainfall.”

O’Donnell said that according to CBS News polling, seven in 10 Americans and more than 60% of Republicans under the age of 45 favor the U.S. taking steps to try and reduce climate change.

She asked the senator what responsibility the Trump administration would have to try and reduce the impact of climate change.

Vance called Hurricane Helene an “unspeakable human tragedy” but went on to suggest he doubts “this idea that carbon emissions drives [sic] all the climate change.”

The youth-led Sunrise Movement, whose activists protested outside CBS News headquarters in New York City earlier this week to demand a climate question at the vice presidential debate, called Vance’s answer “utter nonsense.”