As Hurricane Florence barrels toward the East Coast of the United States on Wednesday night, mainstream media outlets from across the country have been criticizing President Donald Trump for his response to Hurricane Maria last year — which devastated Puerto Rico.

While many people are noting that some 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of those storms, Trump denied these charges — claiming the casualties directly related to the hurricane last year numbered approximately six to 18 people.

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Related: Trump Challenges His Critics on Puerto Rican Death Stats — They Push Back Hard

Now the federal government has been and is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Florence on the East Coast.

“The safety of American people is my absolute highest priority. We are sparing no expense. We are totally prepared, we’re ready. We’re as ready as anybody’s ever been,” said the president this week.

However, MSNBC’s Katy Tur (shown above right), and guest TV personality Bill Nye (above left), argued on Wednesday that the president can’t truly respond as long as he and his fervent supporters are “climate change deniers.”

Tur, in her lead-in to the interview, claimed this: “A new study from Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, is echoing the findings of previous research showing climate change as the cause of warmer ocean conditions that produce fast, intensifying storms like hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. In fact, NOAA is now warning that the waters ahead of Hurricane Florence are roughly three degrees Fahrenheit above average.”

She added, “But where does the Trump administration stand on climate change? Well, just yesterday, President Trump rolled back Obama-era mandates blocking rogue methane leaks from oil and gas wells. Last month, the EPA weakened a rule limiting carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants. And in July, the agency reduced regulations capping greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. These rules were all part of Obama’s three-part strategy for combating climate change.”

After introducing Bill Nye, host of “Bill Nye Saves the World” and the original “Science Guy” himself, to her program, Tur said, “President Trump says FEMA is ready for Hurricane Florence, but mounting evidence suggests it could be incredibly difficult to deal with this disaster if climate change deniers are on the front lines of emergency response.”

Related: Bill Nye the Science Guy Changes the Facts on Gender

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Nye argued that storms like this are happening because the sea surface is over one degree Celsius warmer than it was 30 years ago.

He went on to make some snide remarks about the current sitting president.

“It does make you wonder, how can you adequately prepare for storms, for extreme weather … if you have a bunch of people who don’t believe in climate science running things?”

“Now, I look forward, of course, to all the hate tweets. It’s gonna be great. About how a guy who took a lot of physics can’t possibly read a graph. I got all that. But everybody — this is not in anybody’s best interest to continue to deny climate change,” argued Nye.

Tur asked how the country could adequately prepare for storms when “climate deniers” are in positions of power.

“It does make you wonder, how can you adequately prepare for storms, for extreme weather, for fires, for hurricanes, for tornadoes, for flooding, for wild swings in temperature, which we’ve seen here in New York City the past week, if you have a bunch of people who don’t believe in climate science running things?” said Tur.

Are these individuals right?

Or are they using the storm as a way to push their liberal politics?

Share your comments below — and see the video within the tweet below:

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Katy Tur, CC BY-SA 2.0, Collage/Cut Out/Brightened, by nrkbeta)