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Acosta to White House: Do You Ever Think 'Maybe There Is Something to This Climate Change Thing?'

CNN's Jim Acosta asked Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert Monday if the Trump administration ever thought "maybe there is something to this climate change thing" in the wake of the powerful hurricanes affecting the U.S.

Acosta, who has butted heads with administration officials and President Donald Trump himself on numerous occasions, noted to Bossert at a White House press briefing that the Obama administration drew a link between national security and climate change.

"Are these storms [Hurricanes Harvey and Irma] giving this administration some pause when it comes to the issue of climate change and homeland security?" Acosta asked.

Bossert said "causality" of the storms was out of his ability to analyze, but he said the administration would continue to make sure its response capabilities were there.

"Just to follow up on that, when you see three category 4 hurricanes all on the same map at the same time, does the thought occur to you, ‘Geez, you know, maybe there is something to this climate change thing and its connection to powerful hurricanes?’" Acosta asked. "Or do you just separate the two and say, ‘Boy, these are a lot of big hurricanes coming our way?"

Bossert replied he wasn't sure if he would say either.

"There is a cyclical nature to a lot of these hurricane seasons and I thank the scientists for their forecast on this particular one," he said. "They were dead on that this would be a stronger and more powerful hurricane season with slightly more than average large storms making landfall in the United States, so we’ll have to do a larger trend analysis at a later date."