"Trump Turns To Oil Barons To Boost His White House Bid"

"At fundraisers, Trump has been wooing oil billionaires with a variety of pitches, including false claims about electric cars".

"Earlier this summer, oil billionaire Harold Hamm called for Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race. He made contributions to the presidential campaigns of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and questioned publicly whether Trump could beat President Biden in the 2024 election.

Then late last month, Hamm showed up at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., brought a $200,000 check for a pro-Trump super PAC, and attended a private meeting with Trump and an intimate fundraiser with the former president, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe donations and private meetings.

The reversal came as Trump and his team aggressively court donations from the oil and gas industry, one of the main beneficiaries of his time in the White House. Over the course of four years, the Trump administration weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules and policies, many of them designed to limit planet-warming emissions from fossil fuels. Biden, by contrast, has reversed many of Trump’s policies and enacted dozens of measures aimed at moving the nation away from oil, gas and coal."

Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow report for the Washington Post November 10, 2023.

 

Source: Washington Post, 11/13/2023