No, Hillary Clinton didn’t blame Epstein’s death, 2016 election on climate change

Climate change has caused glaciers and ice sheets to shrink, heat waves to intensify and natural disasters, such as wildfires, to become more frequent. But in a video circulating social media, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to blame climate change for more than these environmental effects.

A Dec. 17 Instagram reel shows a clip of Clinton speaking at an event. "Climate change is real everybody," she supposedly says in the video before blaming climate change for everything from her husband’s infidelity to Jeffrey Epstein’s death.

"Those hard drives got destroyed because of climate change," she appears to say in the video. "My husband flew to Epstein’s island 40 times because of climate change. I lost the 2016 election because of climate change. My husband cheated on me because of climate change. … Even Jeffrey Epstein died because of climate change. It wasn’t me. It was definitely climate change."

(Screengrab from Instagram)

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While the clip sounds like Clinton, the audio doesn’t match up with Clinton’s lips as she speaks, indicating the video was edited.

In the Instagram video, the United Nations’ logo for its 28th Conference of the Parties, aka COP28, can be seen behind Clinton. A reverse-image search confirmed the clip was taken from a Dec. 4 panel during the 2023 global climate change summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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stated on March 30, 2019 in a Facebook post

Says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, "We need to repeal Daylight Savings Time as a primary measure to decrease the rate of climate change. Less hours of sun shine equal less heat hitting Earth’s surface."

In the original footage, Clinton does not mention Epstein, the 2016 election or her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Rather, she and her fellow panelists discussed women’s role in building a climate-resilient world.

The Instagram post took the clip of Clinton from around the 48-minute mark of the hourlong discussion. In the authentic video, Clinton spoke about women and girls being disproportionately affected by natural disasters, particularly extreme heat.

Every year hundreds of thousands of people worldwide die from extreme heat, Clinton said during the panel. "And the majority of those are women and girls, and particularly pregnant women who have special challenges in extreme heat," she said.

Clinton did not blame various events, including her 2016 election loss and Epstein’s death, on climate change. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!