Donald Trump Shamelessly Petitions Oil Executives for Donations in Exchange for Policies

The most pro-polluter president in American history just keeps getting more brazen about it. News emerged last week that Donald Trump asked oil company executives for a billion dollars in order to scrap President Joe Biden’s policies promoting electric vehicles, wind energy, and other limits on fossil fuel pollution.

The Washington Post reported that Trump made the request at a private meeting in April with top oil company executives at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Those present were reported to be “stunned” by Trump’s “remarkably blunt and transactional pitch” for an unprecedented level of oil money to finance his campaign. 

“Donald Trump is selling out working families to Big Oil for campaign checks. It’s that simple,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa in response to the Post’s article. “It doesn’t matter to Trump that oil and gas companies charge working families and middle-class Americans whatever they want while raking in record profits—if Donald can cash a check, he’ll do what they say.”

Affirming Environmental Groups’ Endorsements

The stark contrast between Trump and Biden on clean energy, air pollution, and action on the climate crisis is extensively well-documented. Despite that, League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Vice President of Government Affairs Matthew Davis commented, “It is not shocking, but perhaps a little bold and gross that the oil industry is writing text for executive orders” to roll back President Biden’s environmental protections, to be signed by Donald Trump if he wins back the presidency. This is just the latest example of why LCV and other major environmental groups have endorsed the re-election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as president and vice president.