President-elect Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpSenate advances public lands bill in late-night vote Warren, Democrats urge Trump to back down from veto threat over changing Confederate-named bases Esper orders ‘After Action Review’ of National Guard’s role in protests MORE said he remains “open-minded” on issues involving the environment.
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“I’m very open-minded. I’m still open-minded,” Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday on “Fox News Sunday.”
“Nobody really knows. Look, I’m somebody that gets it, and nobody really knows. It’s not something that’s so hard and fast.”
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Trump claimed other countries are “eating our lunch.” He pointed to places like China and Mexico, where he said people don’t have to wait years to get an approval to build a plant.
“They build it like the following day or the following week. We can’t let all of these permits that take forever to get stop our jobs,” the president-elect said during the interview.
“I won because of the fact that people that are great, great American people have been forgotten. I call them the forgotten man and the forgotten woman.”
Trump last week announced his plans to nominate Scott Pruitt, the Republican attorney general of Oklahoma, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
If confirmed by the Senate to oversee the 15,000-employee agency, Pruitt would take the lead on dismantling the EPA regulations that Trump labeled throughout his campaign as job killers that restrict economic growth.
Trump during the interview that aired Sunday declined to say specifically what he would do regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline if the issue isn’t resolved by the time he took office.
“When I get to office, if it’s not solved, I’ll have it solved very quickly,” Trump said.
“I’m just saying, something will happen. It’ll be quick. I think it’s very unfair. So, it’ll start, one way or the other — you’ll have a decision one — pretty quickly.”
When asked if he would pull out of the Paris climate agreement, Trump said he is “studying” the issue.
“I don’t want that agreement to put us at a competitive disadvantage with other countries,” he said.
“And as you know, there are different times and different time limits on that agreement. I don’t want that to give China, or other countries signing agreements an advantage over us.”