Trump’s 2012 climate change tweet was debate’s most retweeted

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s 2012 tweet calling climate change a Chinese hoax was the most retweeted over the course of the first presidential debate of 2016 on Monday night. 

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese,” Trump said in the Nov. 6, 2012, tweet, which Democrat Hillary Clinton highlighted during an answer on clean energy Monday night.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

“Donald Trump thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese,” she said, to which Trump replied, “I did not. I do not say that.”

The tweet had at least 38,000 retweets before the debate began. As of Tuesday morning, it had been retweeted more than 89,000 times. Clinton’s campaign quoted Trump’s tweet in one of their own during the debate; that message, too, was retweeted more than 73,000 times. 

“I never said that.” —Donald Trump, who said that. #debatenight https://t.co/6T8qV2HCbL

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 27, 2016

The official Twitter Government account deemed it the most retweeted message of the debate shortly after the event ended.

Trump doubts the science behind climate change, a position he has made clear during the campaign. Before his presidential run, he sent several tweets on the subject, calling climate change, among other things, a “hoax,” a “con job,” fictional” and “truly stupid.”