Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced her 2020 presidential candidacy over the weekend, using an icy blizzard as her backdrop until nearly all her supporters were seemingly up to their knees in snow. Given that the senator believes in man-made climate change, President Trump couldn’t help but notice the irony of seeing her announce her candidacy in front of the backdrop of a frozen Mississippi River.
“Well, it happened again,” the president tweeted. “Amy Klobuchar announced that she is running for President, talking proudly of fighting global warming while standing in a virtual blizzard of snow, ice and freezing temperatures. Bad timing. By the end of her speech she looked like a Snowman(woman)!”
In response, Klobuchar scolded the president for disbelieving in climate change and even took a jab at his hair. “Science is on my side, @realDonaldTrump,” she tweeted. “Looking forward to debating you about climate change (and many other issues). And I wonder how your hair would fare in a blizzard?”
The Minnesota senator later appeared on ABC to further argue her climate change stance despite the optics of her snowy announcement.
“I’m sorry if it still snows in the world, but the point is that we know climate change is happening,” Klobuchar said. “Just this last year, it was one of the four hottest years in the history of the world. That’s what’s happening right now. We see this Greenland ice sheet melting. Look at those wildfires in Colorado and California, where you [have had] a dad trying to get through a fire trying to calm his kid down in a car. That’s what’s happening right now, in this country. So that’s why I think we cannot ignore it.”
Klobuchar announcing her 2020 run before a snowy backdrop was an entirely intentional choice, according to CNN. She even referenced it during her speech as a sign of her “grit” and bootstrap attitude.
“On an island in the middle of the mighty Mississippi, in our nation’s heartland, at a time when we must heal the heart of our democracy and renew our commitment to the common good, I stand before you as the granddaughter of an iron ore miner, the daughter of a teacher and a newspaperman, the first woman elected to the United States Senate from the state of Minnesota, to announce my candidacy for President of the United States,” Klobuchar said. “I’m asking you to join us on this campaign. It’s a homegrown one. I don’t have a political machine. I don’t come from money. But what I do have is this: I have grit.”
She added: “I have all of you who are willing to come out in the middle of the winter, all of you who took the time to watch us today from home, all of you who are willing to stand up and say people matter.”
Klobuchar later told CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux that her icy cold speech signified her “grit.”
“What makes me unique is I did this announcement speech in the middle of a blizzard and I think we need people with grit — I have that grit,” she said, later adding, “I am tough enough to take on Donald Trump. I would have liked to see him sitting here in the snow for an hour giving this speech.”