According to detailed notes shared by one of the fundraiser attendees on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, Trump said he would “immediately approve the construction of energy infrastructure — pipelines and power plants” if he returns to office in January.
“I approved the Keystone Pipeline, I approved the Dakota Access Pipeline,” Trump said at a fundraiser at the Post Oak Hotel in Houston, according to the memo.
The event, hosted by three oil executives, highlighted Trump's efforts to close the gap on Biden's fundraising lead by cozying up to the industry that benefited most from his time in the White House. Less than 24 hours later, Senate Democrats launched an investigation into a Trump fundraising dinner last month at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump asked oil executives to direct $1 billion to his campaign and promised to roll back dozens of Biden's environmental policies.
One of the co-hosts of Wednesday's fundraiser was Kelcy Warren, the billionaire chairman and CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline. Federal Election Commission filings show Warren has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of Trump's biggest rivals, during the Republican presidential primary.
Warren now appears to be fully on board with the Trump campaign, having co-hosted a fundraiser in Houston ($250,000 per attendee) and donated $800,000 to the Trump campaign over the course of the 2024 election. The event lasted for hours and included a photo op. The speech lasted about an hour, with Trump mingling with attendees and posing for photos with high-profile donors.
On Thursday, Democrats on the Senate Budget and Finance committees launched a joint investigation into last month's Mar-a-Lago meeting. Senators expressed concern that Trump's requests at the dinner were quid pro quo and may have violated campaign finance laws, but experts say his conduct probably did not border on illegality.
Trump did not question the oil executives during his Wednesday speech. According to notes from attendees, the purpose was to donate a specific amount to campaign funds.
“I'm asking for your generosity,” Trump said as he concluded his speech after laying out his policy pledges and touting his energy record. A person close to the event said the event raised more than $25 million.
“I will lift the ban on natural gas exports and eliminate all unnecessary regulations that waste energy,” President Trump said. [and] “Open more federal lands to drilling,” the memo said, drawing cheers from the audience.
He told attendees that he would immediately reverse Biden's moratorium on new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export approvals. Lifting the moratorium could directly benefit Energy Transfer Partners, which builds pipelines to several LNG export terminals that transport the fuel overseas. The company clashed with the Biden administration last year when it refused to extend the license for its LNG export terminal in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Another co-organizer of the Houston fundraiser was Harold Hamm, chairman of a major oil company. During the event, Trump joked with Hamm, president of Continental Resources and a pioneer of the country's fracking boom, that he was focused solely on fossil fuels.
“He was the first oil guy that taught me a lot about oil,” Trump said of Hamm, according to attendee notes. “This guy knows a lot about oil and gas, but that's all he knows. And that's the problem. He's boring to be around, because all he wants to talk about is oil and gas.”
The fundraiser's third co-organizer is Vicki Holub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, who has been touting “net-zero oil,” a seemingly contradictory term for oil produced using carbon dioxide captured from drilling.
Spokespeople for Energy Transfer Partners, Continental Resources and Occidental Petroleum did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reached for comment, Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt did not directly respond to questions about the fundraiser. In an emailed statement, she said, “President Trump is supported by people who share his vision of American energy dominance to protect our national security and lower the cost of living for all Americans.”
Despite the oil industry's dissatisfaction with Biden's policies, the United States currently produces more oil than any other country, averaging about 13 million barrels per day last year.
At a fundraiser in Houston, Trump again complained about wind energy, claiming turbines kill bald eagles and that wind power “doesn't work,” and made his preferences clear, according to attendee notes.
“We have wind, but we need natural gas. Natural gas is clean and strong and powerful. We need more gasoline and more oil,” Trump said, according to the memo. He also praised North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican who oversees much of Trump's energy policy and attended the event.
President Trump promised oil company executives that he would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling, and his administration auctioned off oil and gas rights in the nation's last pristine wilderness just days before leaving office.
“We got ANWR approved in Alaska. It's the biggest oil farm,” he said, mistakenly stating that the refuge's oil reserves are “on par with Saudi Arabia's.” The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there are between 4.3 billion and 11.8 billion barrels of oil beneath the refuge's coastal plain, but a coalition of oil producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia estimates Saudi Arabia has proven crude reserves of 267 billion barrels.
The Jan. 6, 2021, sale of ANWR leases attracted little industry interest, and the Biden administration later suspended the leases, saying Trump administration officials had not conducted an “adequate analysis” of how drilling would affect critical habitat for endangered polar bears and migratory birds. Three of the winning bidders later withdrew, and the Interior Department canceled the remaining seven leases last year, but is legally obligated to hold a second lease sale by the end of the year.
At a fundraiser in Houston, President Trump returned to a familiar theme, lambasting electric vehicles. He promised to “immediately repeal the EV mandate,” a misrepresentation of ambitious rules recently finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency that require automakers to cut emissions. It does not mandate any particular technology, such as EVs.
Trump complained that electric truck batteries are too big and heavy. “It's a giant battery. It's bigger than an army tank,” Trump said, according to notes from the attendees.
He also ridiculed energy- and water-saving appliances, calling them “scams” and “energy scams.”
Despite his dissatisfaction with electric vehicles, efficient appliances and, more broadly, Biden's ambitious climate change policies, Trump assured attendees that he is a “strong believer in the environment.”
“The air has been the cleanest under the Trump administration,” he said.
The fundraising activities Among other topics, Trump bragged about his golfing skills, saying he had improved over the past 25 years, slammed the New York trial and other criminal indictments, and gave a slide-based presentation on other topics, including immigration and foreign policy, according to people who attended.
“We are going to build the greatest Iron Dome in our country,” he said. “Israel has it.”
He regaled the crowd with a lengthy talk about his 2019 impeachment (for asking Ukraine's leaders to investigate Hunter Biden and withholding foreign aid) and called Ukraine a “very corrupt country.” He said he only called the Ukrainian president in 2019 at the request of Republican former Texas governor and energy secretary Rick Perry.
“So I got impeached and I said, 'Thanks, Rick,'” Trump said.
He focused for several minutes on how the special counsel, in a report released this year, questioned the president's memory and mental capacity without charging him with possessing classified documents.
“This is probably the worst acquittal I've ever seen,” he said, vowing to use the special counsel's report in his campaign.
President Trump bragged about his ability to save Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) from impeachment, saying his critics backed down when he came to his defense.
Trump said he was going after Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who led the failed impeachment effort against Paxton.
“I attacked a guy who's not your friend, not because of that, but because he wasn't involved in the voter fraud that was going on in Texas,” he said, repeating false claims about voter fraud.
President Trump repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley was the most important person in the room to “stop the cheating.”
“We call it saving the vote, watching the vote and stopping the steal,” he said of what the Republican National Committee should do. The Republican National Committee has launched a program called “Save the Vote” to collect early votes.
He said he chose Whatley for the post because he argued that North Carolina did not lose the election “overnight,” as has happened in other states, but because more ballots came in. Prior to his current position, Whatley served as chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party.
“When you talk about that, you're a denier,” Trump said of false claims about the 2020 election, according to the memo. “I'm the biggest denier of all time.”
Trump also said he was trying to post less frequently to Truth Social after midnight.
“I never get past two o'clock. Three o'clock is like magic. They say he was telling the truth at 3 a.m.,” he said. “They make me look like a bit of a weirdo.”
Fixes
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Donald Trump became president in 2016. He became president in 2017. The article has been updated.
