MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Wednesday ripped into Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for falsely blaming the power grid failure in his state on renewable energy like windmills. Scarborough told “Morning Joe” viewers very clearly that Abbott is “lying through his teeth.”
After co-host Mika Brzezinski cited the Dallas Morning News’ reporting that thermal sources such as natural gas and nuclear power, not renewable ones, caused the major outages, Scarborough said, “I know this will come as a shock to nobody, but Greg Abbott is lying through his teeth when he’s blaming renewables for the grid going down. The facts in his own state by the Texas government, by people that follow this show he’s just lying through his teeth.”
Abbott has been using Twitter and television appearances to blame frozen windmills and other renewable energy forms for the outages in his state, which have left millions of Texans without power in the wake of major snow storms.
He even targeted proponents of renewable energy like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), though he did not articulate what influence she has had on his state’s power grid. Ocasio-Cortez has been an outspoken proponent of a Green New Deal to boost efforts toward renewable energy — but no legislation has actually passed or been implemented yet.
Scarborough pressed Abbott for passing the buck. “He can’t blame AOC. He can’t blame the Green New Deal. He can’t blame renewable,” the host said. “It’s all his fault and all the fault of the Texas lawmakers who continued to underfund their energy infrastructure.”
Co-host Willie Geist noted it’s a “strange, strange instinct” for Abbott to “rush onto Hannity and blame a congresswoman from New York for the Green New Deal, which doesn’t exist” while Texans struggle and, in some cases, die in the cold.