CNN and other outlets keep dredging up anti-Trump comments that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt made during the presidential election when he was campaigning for former Gov. Jeb Bush.
Pruitt called President Donald Trump an “empty vessel” on the law and Constitution during a radio interview in February of 2016, according to a Monday CNN report. It’s the second reported instance where the EPA head laid into his future boss. One thing that has gone largely unnoticed is that Pruitt was stumping for Bush’s ill-fated presidential campaign at the time.
“I’m very concerned that perhaps if he’s in the White House, that there may be a very blunt instrument as the voice of the Constitution,” Pruitt said on the “Exploring Energy” radio show Feb. 11, 2016. At least former President Barack Obama tries to conceal his illegality, he added.
“This President, the one we have there now, has at least tried to nuance his unlawfulness,” Pruitt said of Trump’s Democratic predecessor. “He at least sits back and says, ‘How do we break the law and so where it’s really tough to show that we have?’ I’m not sure that Donald Trump would.”
His comments came at a time when Bush tasked the former Oklahoma attorney general in 2015 with leading a group dubbed “Restoring Federalism Task Force.” The former Republican governor would later float the idea of nominating Pruitt to head his EPA.
Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse pressed Pruitt Tuesday on newly released documents from 2016 that show the former Oklahoma attorney general opposed Trump during the campaign.
“Donald Trump in the White House would be more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama,” Pruitt said on “The Pat Campbell Show” prior to the election, according to an audio recording liberal advocacy group Documented obtained in January.
Whitehouse, a frequent critic of Trump and his EPA chief, pounced on the report while questioning Pruitt during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. He peppered Pruitt with questions about the recording, asking him if he recalled the statements.
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