Republicans are infamous for changing their words, but some are so ignorant they don’t realize or remember that they’ve been recorded. After claiming again that he is not a climate change denier, a video of Sen. Ron Johnson from just weeks earlier proves otherwise. In the video reported by CNN, the Wisconsin senator can be heard calling climate change “bullshit” during a GOP luncheon in early June.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I think climate change is – as Lord Monckton said – bullsh*t,” Johnson said. “By the way, it is.” Instead of explicitly saying the curse, Johson mouthed it. The comment was made during the Republican Women of Greater Wisconsin Luncheon, mere weeks before a heatwave claimed the lives of dozens in the U.S. Scientists and experts have tied the historic heatwave to issues of climate change.  

According to CNN, as a member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, Johnson made multiple comments against the call to action for climate change, including calling efforts “a self-inflicted wound” and questioning why the U.S. was focused on the issue at all. Additionally, he said “there are more and more scientists” writing books “just laying this to waste.”

“What are we doing here? Well, we’re killing ourselves,” Johnson said.

But it doesn’t end there—he’s also accused both media outlets and Democrats of using the idea of climate change as a tool to crease “a state of fear.”

“It was all about creating the state of fear as they tried to do with global warming. Oh, I’m sorry. It’s climate change now. Yeah. Whatever works,” he said. “Whatever works that they can, you can set up a state of fear so they can step in and alleviate their fear.”

While the video comes as the most recent expression of his climate change denier ideology, he has repeatedly downplayed the climate crisis. Not only has he refused to accept that humans have contributed to climate change, but in March he told The New York Times that the climate crisis can’t be real because of an assumption that Greenland “was actually green at one point in time”.  

“I could be wrong there, but that’s always been my assumption that, at some point in time, those early explorers saw green,” he told the Times.

Johnson also made a similar statement to Madison TV station WKOW in 2010, meaning this ideology goes way back. 

Of course, like other GOP officials, despite there being evidence of his words Johnson continued to claim he is not a climate change denier and defended himself in a statement to CNN. “My statements are consistent. I am not a climate change denier, but I also am not a climate change alarmist. Climate is not static. It has always changed and always will change,” Johnson said.  

He continued on to defend himself on Twitter by doing what GOP officials do best: targeting other members of Congress. “I do not share Rep. Ocasio-Cortez view that the ‘world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.’ Or POTUS saying the ‘greatest threat’ to U.S. security is climate change. I consider those to be extreme positions — to say the least,” he said on Twitter.

The reality is Johnson can claim he’s not a climate change denier all he wants, but the facts show otherwise.

He clearly has had a long history of making comments on climate change and the ties of it to human activities, only to deny them later on. “I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change,” Johnson said in 2016 when arguing whether or not climate change was real.

At this point, it seems like his retractions are only being made to save himself. After all, he’s the only Wisconsin Republican senator facing reelection next year. Being in a state that backed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race, Johnson has to change a lot of minds in order to make himself more appealing.