Kentucky’s Tea Party Republican Governor Matt Bevin is once again getting blasted, this time for remarks he made about the weather. This week the majority of the United States will experience extreme weather conditions, with temperatures falling so far some areas will feel like 40 or 50 degrees below zero.
On MSNBC Wednesday morning, veteran weather forecaster Al Roker took a swing at Governor Bevin.
“By the way, this nitwit governor in Kentucky, saying that, ‘Oh, we’re weak.’ These are kids who are going to be in sub-zero wind chills. No, cancel school. Stop it. Adults, if they want to be out there, that’s great. These are our children,” Roker blasted.
“I’m glad you’re not a teacher,” he added, looking into the camera as he focused his anger on Bevin.
Roker had just reported that areas like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Thursday will have wind chills of 22 degrees below zero, New York City 13 below zero, Chicago 44 below zero, and Louisville, Kentucky minus 6.
“I mean, what happens to America?” Bevin, talking about the impending polar vortex, had told a local Louisville radio station on Tuesday. “We’re getting soft,” he said repeatedly.
Bevin also claimed that by closing schools because of six degree below zero wind chills, “we’re sending messages to our young people that if life is hard you can curl up in the fetal position somewhere in a warm place and just wait until it stops being hard.”
The Washington Post on Wednesday slammed Governor Bevin, noting that “in Louisville, where several school districts said they would close in anticipation of a blast of arctic air from the polar vortex,” the weather was “expected to bring life-threatening temperatures to parts of the Midwest and nearby states.”
The one-term Republican incumbent, who is up for reelection this year, wasn’t asking about the increased frequency of extreme weather events, which scientists believe is a sign of intensifying climate change. Or about the fate of thousands of homeless Americans whose lives will be at acute risk in the biting cold.
His question was about why everyone couldn’t just toughen up.
“We’re getting soft,” warned Bevin, who loves posting selfies on social media but has also blocked hundreds of his constituents from interacting with his pages because he doesn’t like what they say about him, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. In case his message wasn’t clear, he repeated: “We’re getting soft.”
Bevin may be best-known for his campaign for governor, in which he actively supported Kentucky’s anti-gay county clerk Kim Davis, who spent several days in jail for contempt of court in a case where she refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Earlier on NBC’s “Today” show Roker also went after Bevin, but in a less specific manner.
Watch: