SPEECH PREVIEW: Trump Will Spout Big Oil’s Lies and Sell Out American Workers To Help Himself and Protect Industry Profits
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Detroit, Mich. – In a few moments, Donald Trump will address the Detroit Economic Club in what is sure to be a rambling, incoherent journey down a rabbit hole populated by Big Oil’s favorite falsehoods and petty grievances that will bore his audience. But as he tosses and turns through his word salad, one thing will be very clear – Donald Trump is selling out the futures of countless American workers to please the Big Oil billionaires that he needs to bail out his campaign.
Donald Trump, JD Vance, and other MAGA politicians like Mike Rogers have continued to parrot thoroughly disproven lies about EV mandates. Fact-checkers and experts across the country agree – there is no EV mandate, and Big Oil is spending millions lying about it anyway:
- LOS ANGELES TIMES EDITORIAL, “Trump and oil companies are lying to you about electric cars to serve their own interests.”
- NEW YORK TIMES, “The rule does not mandate sales of electric vehicles, and consumers can still buy and drive gas-powered cars.”
- POLITIFACT,“A fuel trade group is running ads in battleground election states that claim, ‘EPA regulators just banned most new gas-powered cars.’ …We rate the claim False.”
- FACTCHECK.ORG, “The proposals to reduce tailpipe emissions and raise the fuel efficiency standards of cars and trucks would not ‘ban’ the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles, as a trade group for fuel makers falsely suggests in an ad campaign.”
- NPR, “Voters in Midwestern states are seeing ads railing against President Biden’s gas car ban. But there’s one catch: the Biden administration hasn’t prohibited gas-powered vehicles. That’s not stopping fossil fuel industry groups and former President Donald Trump from targeting swing state voters with warnings of car bans.”
So, why is Donald Trump trying to sell the public on a non-existent mandate? Certainly not to help American workers or bolster manufacturing. Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says that Trump’s promise to repeal the clean energy plan “would be a blow to manufacturing.” and that … “China would certainly benefit.”
No, it is consistent with Trump’s established record – Trump’s first term cost Americans an estimated 1.1 million jobs; now Trump’s Project 2025 agenda is plotting an “all-out war” on clean energy that would destroy 1.7 million jobs and cause $320 billion a year in damage to the U.S. economy.
Instead, Trump is doing what he always does – serving billionaires to salvage his political survival and flatter the super-wealthy. Six months after Trump solicited oil barons for $1 billion in donations while pledging to adopt their extreme interests, Bloomberg reports that he has gone back to the well, turning to these same wealthy backers to revive his campaign’s coffers.
As the Los Angeles Times writes:
Oil companies are worried that federal incentives and the growing popularity of electric vehicles will eat into their profits and threaten their stranglehold over energy consumption. Former President Trump and other Republican politicians want to exploit consumer and autoworker anxieties about the transition to zero-emission vehicles to help them win in November.
That’s why both the fossil fuel industry and the GOP are spreading the same lie that the Biden administration is banning gas cars. This self-serving effort to deceive voters is shameful, even for those whose peddling of disinformation has become sadly expected.
As Trump speaks at the Detroit Economic Club to give his downright dangerous Big Oil-funded economic vision to give the industry a veneer of legitimacy, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are running on a record of success and a real vision for a better future for American workers. Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the largest climate and clean energy investment in history, which has already created more than 330,000 jobs across the country, including over 21,000 jobs in Michigan, with over 80% of those in the EV and Battery sector.
While Trump lies to voters in order to satisfy his billionaire donors, Harris and Walz won’t peddle nonsense to the American people. Instead, they will address the climate crisis head-on by expanding opportunities for good-paying jobs and lowering energy costs for all Michiganders.
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