Former President Donald Trump reportedly held a meeting with some of the country’s biggest oil executives at Mar-a-Lago where, according to a remarkable report in The Washington Post, it seems he was trying to sell the future of the planet in exchange for filthy lucre.
According to the Post, after an oil executive there complained that the hundreds of millions they had spent lobbying President Joe Biden hadn’t influenced his position on environmental regulations, Trump offered to make a deal with the executives that left many of them stunned:
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.
Sources told the Post that Trump also said this apparent quid pro quo was a “deal” for the executives because of the savings they’d get when, assuming he wins, he guts taxes and regulations.
On a policy level, this is horrifying. Trump appears eager to accelerate worldwide climate disaster if it helps fill his campaign war chest. One does not have to think Biden’s climate policy is anywhere close to perfect to see how much more dangerous Trump’s worldview is in this policy area.
Even if Trump’s behavior doesn’t meet the threshold for corruption according to the letter of the law, the appearance of corruption is still damag