Louise Linton, the wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, briefly expressed support for climate activist Greta Thunberg on Instagram just days after her husband dismissed the teen as too unqualified to preach.
Mnuchin said the 17-year-old, who urged world leaders to divest from the fossil fuel industry at the World Economic Forum last week, should get an economics degree if she wants to be taken seriously.
Mnuchin’s wife, however, appeared to publicly disagree with him on Saturday, at least momentarily.
“I stand with Greta on this issue. (I don’t have a degree in economics either) We need to drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels. Keep up the fight @gretathunberg,” the post on her verified Instagram account read.
The post praising Thunberg was mysteriously deleted about 30 minutes later.
Thunberg ― not one to let others fight her battles for her ― also hit back at Mnuchin on Thursday, telling him that one doesn’t need an economics degree to see the world’s current carbon emissions rate is exceeding levels set to prevent a rise in global temperatures.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman also trashed Mnuchin’s understanding of economics, tweeting: “It’s the people insisting that protecting the planet is incompatible with growth who don’t know economics.”