MSNBC host Ali Velshi compared critics of climate change to "people who think we walk among aliens" and other conspiracy theorists during a Wednesday interview with climate activist Monica Medina on MSNBC Live with Velshi and Ruhle.
"Okay, so 27 percent of Americans do not accept climate change," Velshi said. "About 23 percent of Americans think that Barack Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim. About 24 percent of Americans think that we walk amongst aliens. So I guess it is not crazy that 27 percent don't accept that the world is warming."
Velshi then asked Medina why "are Republicans completely not in sync with that number, with the 73 percent of Americans who do believe in it?"
Medina replied that she didn't "understand it at all," before pointing to the record floods in Nebraska and Iowa as proof of climate change and the immediate need to address it.
The conversation came amidst a wider discussion of the Green New Deal, an "aspirational" bill which is currently being debated on the Senate floor. The proposal, from Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) proposes a number of environmental reforms, including retrofitting all buildings with clean energy alternatives and providing economic security for "those unwilling to work."
The bill failed a cloture vote on Tuesday, with many Democrats who had supported it voting "present" on the procedural vote. When pushed on MSNBC's Meet the Press to explain why this was the case, Green New Deal co-sponsor Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii) explained her "present" vote to host Katy Tur by saying that the vote was a "sham" designed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) to discredit the bill.
"He wanted to divide the Democrats and the bottom line is the Green New Deal is an aspirational document that says we recognize the science behind climate change, unlike Trump and the Republicans and all the climate deniers who wants to stick their heads in the sand and make believe that climate change is not happening and all of the growing natural disasters that are taking peoples' lives and costing our cities, our businesses, our people billions of dollars," Hirono said.