Trump backs disastrous head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt

An editorial in The Washington Post said it is time for Scott Pruitt, the embattled US Environmental Protection Agency administrator, to resign.

In an editorial, it says: “The blizzard of ethical questions surrounding [Pruitt] has become a Category 5 storm … In any normal administration, Pruitt would be gone. Instead, even as revelations about Pruitt piled up this week, Trump was reportedly still entertaining the idea of installing Pruitt as attorney general, a position for which his primary qualification may be a willingness to squelch the Russia investigation. An ideologue who has arrogantly abused his position, Pruitt does not deserve a promotion. He deserves to be fired.”

Pruitt has faced cross-party calls to resign and is also facing an inquiry by a congressional oversight panel for links to an energy lobbyist.

Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday that he supported Pruitt, and said the official’s travel and security expenses were reasonable. Tweeting that Pruitt is doing a “great job”.

In a separate editorial, the Washington Post says “there’s still hope on global warming — if the world gets to work”.

It adds: “Even if stringent global emissions goals seem too difficult to reach, it is still worth cutting the risk of truly catastrophic warming as much as possible. The most plausible vehicle for encouraging global effort, so the US does not shrink its carbon footprint while others dawdle, is the Paris agreement that President Trump repudiated. Unless the president changes his mind and the US rejoins the pact, the country will squander the moral currency it earns when reports like this come out.”