Donald Trump and Al Gore met today to discuss climate issues, as the president-elect tries to make people forget about the insane things he’s said about the subject. The meeting came after the former vice-president met with Ivanka Trump, who reportedly wants to focus on climate as First Daughter.
“I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect,” Gore said. “It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The bulk of the time was with the president-elect, Donald Trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I’m just going to leave it at that.”
Common ground would seemingly be hard for these two to come by, particularly when it comes to climate change. Gore is a famous advocate for acting on global warming, while Trump has at worst labeled it a Chinese hoax, and at best suggested “some connectivity” between climate change and human activity.
Despite Trump’s awful opinions on the climate, it’s easy to imagine him making nice with Gore. Telling people what they want to hear is what Trump does. And the benefit of doing that with Gore is immediately obvious. Hours after their meeting, Trump now has the world’s most famous advocate for addressing the manmade causes of global warming talking about their “productive” conversation. That’s not going to make supporters out of those appalled by his previous statements on the climate, but it might make them oppose him a little less. And that seems to be the point.
