EPA chief once called Trump an ’empty vessel’ in interview

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) once called President Trump an “empty vessel” when it comes to his knowledge of the Constitution, CNN reported on Monday.

Scott Pruitt criticized then-candidate Trump’s ability to uphold the Constitution as president in an interview with an Oklahoma radio show in February 2016.

“I think he’s an empty vessel when it comes to things like the Constitution and rule of law,” Pruitt said on the “Exploring Energy” radio show. “I’m very concerned that perhaps if he’s in the White House, that there may be a very blunt instrument as the voice of the Constitution.”

Pruitt at the time of his comments was backing Jeb Bush’s Republican presidential campaign.

Pruitt, who served as attorney general in his home state of Oklahoma, also compared Trump to former President Barack Obama, saying in the interview that Obama at least had the wherewithal to know how to hide his “unlawfulness.” 

“This president, the one we have there now, has at least tried to nuance his unlawfulness,” Pruitt said. “He at least sits back and says, ‘How do we break the law and so where it’s really tough to show that we have?’ I’m not sure that Donald Trump would.”

The newly unearthed interview is the second to come to light in the past week in which Pruitt criticizes Trump.

During a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Capitol Hill last Tuesday, Pruitt was asked by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) about comments he made at another local Oklahoma radio station in February 2016.

In that audio, Pruitt said Trump as president would be “more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama.”

Pruitt responded to both audio releases with the same statement, saying, “After meeting him, and now having the honor of working for him, it is abundantly clear that President Trump is the most consequential leader of our time. No one has done more to advance the rule of law than President Trump. The President has liberated our country from the political class and given America back to the people.”