Hawaii Democrat Senator Brian Schatz used the horrific fire that consumed the city of Lahaina and killed at least 115 people to blame the tragedy on climate change, declaring that the entire planet was at risk of “severe weather.”

Schatz spoke on Monday with CNN’s John Berman, who asked, “What do you think the most important specific lessons are that can be learned from this to make sure a tragedy of this level does not happen again?”

“Well, I think we all have to understand that severe weather events are going to get more frequent and more severe,” Schatz answered. “Hawaii is a place that has experienced volcanic eruptions and tsunamis and hurricanes and tropical storms. And we’ve had a few wildfires but nothing that threatened a whole city — nothing that flattened a whole city.”

“And I just think this is the new normal for not just the State of Hawaii, but for the whole planet — for the whole country,” he hyperbolized. “So, you know, as we contend with increasing severe weather all the time, we’re not only going to need to take action on climate. We actually need to be prepared in terms of our emergency response at the state, local, and federal levels for the kind of disaster that maybe you hadn’t contemplated before.”

Hawaii Sen. @brianschatz on the man-made Maui wildfire: “This is the new normal for … the whole planet” pic.twitter.com/FP7XeODyTz

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 21, 2023

Despite Schatz’s focus on climate change, some experts believe the cause of the Maui fire was high winds that downed power lines. Some victims of the fire launched a lawsuit targeting Hawaiian Electric, saying its equipment was not resilient enough in the face of the heavy winds and the utility did not shut down power after a warning of high winds had been announced.

Berman asked about the mayor of Maui’s statement that 850 on Maui were still unaccounted for, asking if it was possible 850 deceased people were still unidentified.

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“I don’t want to speculate,” Schatz answered. “There is a process that we are going through FEMA-led with cadaver dogs to go through every single structure in Lahaina town, and wherever else there was damage. And obviously, we have between 110 and 120 confirmed deceased. And then there’s a process of identifying via DNA sample, the identity of the deceased. But we’re just not done with the process yet. We are hoping that many of the missing simply haven’t checked in and lacked telecommunications. But we just don’t know.”

Fox News has moved to restrict former President Donald Trump’s surrogates from attending the Republican Party primary debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday after the former president announced over the weekend that he would not be showing up.

The network informed the Trump campaign on Monday that access to the debate “spin room” — where top supporters of candidates tout the person they are supporting and attack foes — was now going to be limited to “participating candidate/campaigns,” according to a Fox News memo obtained by Axios.

Other campaigns that did not qualify would also not be allowed to send their surrogates onto the network.

The 77-year-old former president declared over the weekend that the results of a CBS News GOP primary poll proved that the primary was over and that he did not need to debate, even as a notable poll in Iowa released this week showed that the race could be much closer in the key primary state.

“I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!” Trump stated on social media on Sunday evening.

The former president instead taped a pre-recorded interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that will be streamed on social media around the time of the debate.

The CBS News poll that Trump cited to justify not showing up to the debate included in its cross-tabs a question for “likely Republican primary voters” about Trump appearing at the debate.

“Do you think Donald Trump should or should not participate in the Republican debate?” the poll asked.

In response, 73% said that he “should” show up to the debate, while just 27% said that he “should not.”

“Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy suggested this week that Trump may be helping President Joe Biden by skipping the debates, arguing that by doing so he opened the door for Biden to skip debating Trump if Trump becomes the Republican Party nominee.

Doocy said, “Unfortunately, by skipping the debates, Donald Trump may actually be helping Joe Biden because he’s giving Joe Biden an excuse for not debating Donald Trump.”

“That’s one of the things that Ronna McDaniel told the former president when she was trying to get him to do the first debate,” he continued. “But he said, nope, not going to do it.”

Doocy explained that “if Donald Trump says, ‘everybody knows me, I don’t need to do it’, then Joe Biden goes, ‘everybody knows me, I’m president’.”