'Everything has a price': Insiders say Trump secret offer left oil barons 'stunned'
Donald Trump made a transactional offer that reportedly "stunned" top oil executives at an event last month at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
One executive complained about environmental regulations they continued to face despite spending $400 million to lobby President Joe Biden's administration, and the former president pitched what some attendees perceived as a blunt and transactional offer, reported the Washington Post.
"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," the Post reported.
"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."
The presumptive Republican nominee has already asked the oil industry to help craft his environmental agenda for a possible second term that would roll back Biden's mandates on clean energy and electric vehicles, and Trump told attendees over chopped steak that he would allow new offshore drilling, fast-track permits and relax other regulations.
“You’ve been waiting on a permit for five years, you’ll get it on Day 1,” Trump told the executives, according to one attendee.
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Oil executives had hoped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or some other Republican would challenge Biden, and so far oil donors and their allies have given only $6.4 million to Trump's joint fundraising committee in the first quarter of this year, but oil billionaire Harold Hamm and others will host a fundraiser for him later this year that's expected to generate larger amounts of money.
“Biden constantly throws a wet blanket to the oil and gas industry,” said Dan Eberhart, chief executive of the oil-field services company Canary. “Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ philosophy aligns much better with the oil patch than Biden’s green-energy approach. It’s a no-brainer.”
Oil executives are intrigued by Trump's pitch, which Alex Witt, a senior adviser for oil and gas with Climate Power, said shows that "everything has a price" with the former president.
“They got a great return on their investment during Trump’s first term," Witt said, "and Trump is making it crystal clear that they’re in for an even bigger payout if he’s re-elected."