Subscribe to receive The 45th newsletter in your inbox.

US President Donald Trump has used a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Postto slam the chair of the Federal Reserve and dismiss the US government’s landmark report released last week that found that the damages from climate change are intensifying.

“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water, and it’s right now at a record clean," Trump said. "As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it.”

The president blamed recent stock market declines and this week’s announcement of General Motors plant closures and layoffs on the Federal Reserve, complaining at length about its chairman Jerome H. “Jay” Powell, whom he nominated earlier this year. “I’m doing deals, and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed. They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me," he said.