An internecine war has broken out between Donald Trump’s White House and one Cabinet head over budget cuts that led one official to admit in a text, “It’s toxic af over there. The boys are fighting.”
According to a report from Politico’s Sophia Cai and Ben Lefebvre, there is battle over spending cuts proposed by Department of Energy chief Chris Wright and Trump officials centering on his plan to hack away up to $30 billion in federal clean energy grants left over from President Joe Biden’s tenure.
At issue was Wright’s rush to propose cuts when the White House wanted to pick and choose which ones survived to “be used as bargaining chips with Congress and states.”
Politico is also reporting that there is also a difference of opinion about some grants Wright wants to save and Trump’s people want gone.
“There are definitely annoyances with the White House about who gets to decide what gets cut and when it gets cut,” one Trump official admitted.
“Some of the people disagreed on the exact source of the tension with Wright, a former Colorado-based fracking executive who has been aggressive this year in championing Trump’s pro-fossil-fuel agenda in foreign capitals. But the six [insiders] agreed that the proposal to yank funding for hundreds of solar, wind, carbon capture, hydrogen and auto industry projects has been complicated by tense relationships among Wright, the White House and other political appointees at DOE headquarters,” Politico is reporting.
The report noted that DOE staff were all set to release their list but had not shared it with the White House which also angered staffers at the White House Office of Management and Budget.
“The tension is between the people who worked in government before and this other team who worked in the private sector and don’t think they need to follow processes or rules and think they can turn things on their heads,” explained one official.
“Wright has tried to be nuanced about which projects go on the list, knowing that ultimately he would be the person answering for the cuts, according to two of the people familiar with the process,” Politico is reporting before adding, “But the White House and its allies in DOE headquarters intervened, forcing Wright’s hand in the timing of the announcements.”
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