Breaking: WAPO: What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign

[lindysalsagal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/09/trump-oil-industry-campaign-money/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3da92fc%2F663cf92d53df4a059ee2ddf0%2F5adfa960ade4e26417b9dae7%2F8%2F49%2F663cf92d53df4a059ee2ddf0

Donald Trump has pledged to scrap President Biden’s policies on electric vehicles and wind energy, as well as other initiatives opposed by the fossil fuel industry.

By Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow
May 9, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1200

Former president Donald Trump shakes hands with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R), who is leading the Trump campaign’s development of its energy policy, at a rally in Laconia, N.H., on Jan. 22. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

As Donald Trump sat with some of the country’s top oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago Club last month, one executive complained about how they continued to face burdensome environmental regulations despite spending $400 million to lobby the Biden administration in the last year.

Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people.

Trump’s remarkably blunt and transactional pitch reveals how the former president is targeting the oil industry to finance his reelection bid. At the same time, he has turned to the industry to help shape his environmental agenda for a second term, including the rollbacks of some of Biden’s signature achievements on clean energy and electric vehicles.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. TFG is clearly offering these executives inducements for their contributions

Link to tweet

[moondust]

2. Only $1 billion?

To destroy the environment and make planet Earth uninhabitable for billions of living organisms?

That's probably worth at least $5 billion, no?

[FalloutShelter]

3. He is selling out the Earth's future. While this is happening right now:

77% of top climate scientists think 2.5°C of warming is coming—and they're horrified
Nearly three-quarters blamed world leaders' insufficient action on a lack of political will, while 60% said that corporate interests such as fossil fuel companies were interfering with progress.

"I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South," one South African scientist told The Guardian. "The world's response to date is reprehensible—we live in an age of fools."

and this:
I’ve been reeling over the fact moisture content in the atmosphere is accelerating. If you haven’t yet read it, you can find it here.

Southern Brazil has been hit hard by record rainfall for weeks. There has been a pause as the rain bands moved and dumped rain in Uruguay for the past two days. That is about to change as the storms move back to Southern Brazil. Too many have lost their lives or are missing, thousands are homeless and stranded, there is little food and water is contaminated, and the severity of the damage is so vast the government is overwhelmed. Four million people are affected, and 800,000 need assistance. The current situation remains dire.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/8/2239669/-Southern-Brazil-flooding-continues-to-worsen-The-imagery-is-apocalyptic-I-am-afraid?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

But... but...but... Genocide Joe

[Dustlawyer]

4. Campaign finance reform needs to be #1 issue

[lindysalsagal]

5. I believe we're not a democracy until we do. We need to starve the TV networks of their teat.

[Dustlawyer]

6. And pass anti-propaganda laws.

[Caliman73]

7. How is that not illegal?

I know this is rhetorical question in part, because I know it is legal because the wealthy people help to write the rules so that they can continue to buy politicians and policy.

In a functioning representative democracy, however, this should be completely illegal. It is a straight up bribe, or extortion however you look at it.

"Give me a billion dollars and I will gut regulations that will give you hundreds of billions of dollars once I am in power". That is straight up quid pro quo.

Money needs to be out of politics now.