You are all rich enough, he said, to raise a billion dollars to put me back in the White House. At the dinner, he pledged to roll back dozens of President Biden’s environmental regulations and policies and prevent new ones from being enacted, according to other people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a personal conversation.
Giving $1 billion would be a “deal,” Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people.
El LedeReport and comments on what you want to know today.
The leaders responded. A fracking king named Harold Hamm (who had supported Ron DeSantis in the primary in the first place) took the lead, manning the phones diligently. “Harold just sticks his finger in the ground and oil will go up,” Trump said admiringly at an event. But in this case he put his finger in the phone and what came out was money. The Post again: “Hamm is working ‘incredibly hard to raise the most cash imaginable from the energy sector,’ said a Trump campaign aide. “We earned max checks from other people we had never earned a dollar from before. »
As I said, no one shakes their head at all this anymore. This is corruption, but a type of corruption legalized through the Supreme Court, in Citizens United and other decisions; We are beginning to assume that government force will be used on behalf of the bidder.
The corruption of language, however, is slightly different. Trump, a master at directing attention where it needs it, also used Monday’s signing sessions to call for a “national power emergency. “According to one contributor, this will “unlock a variety of other authorities” that will make it less difficult for them to make those adjustments; However, the main effect will be simply to cover their tracks. Because there is no energy emergency. The United States is generating oil and fuel at record levels. In fact, oil industry players have low in recent weeks that they don’t need to see more drilling because it would reduce costs. (Trump’s executive orders, ending the lease of federal waters for offshore wind farms, would well restrict the amount of energy the country could potentially produce. )
This emergency of force supposedly arises from the desire to supply more force to the centers of knowledge, so that we can beat China in the quest for the grail of artificial intelligence. “The emergence of the national force is due to the fact that we are in an A. I. zone. race with China, and our ability to produce American national strength is such that we can generate the electrical power and force that is needed to remain on the world’s leading edge of technology,” said a Trump official, speaking without attribution to reporters, on the morning of the inauguration.
But all the doubts about the usefulness and urgency of the progression of A. I. As an aside, if this were the new administration’s true goal, it would really need to abandon fossil fuels. In late 2024, a team of Silicon Valley researchers from Stripe, Anthropic, Tesla and elsewhere produced a report showing that solar microgrids are by far the fastest way to produce the power needed by powerhouses. need for knowledge. “The estimated uptime for a giant off-grid solar microgrid can be around 2 years (1-2 years for site acquisition and permitting, more than 1-2 years for site construction). There is no apparent explanation as to why it may just work. It won’t be done. more temporarily through highly motivated and competent builders,” the report says. That’s because all you have to do is install a bunch of solar panels and batteries and run a cable to your knowledge center, not build a huge centralized power plant and connect it to the grid. The report continues: “Off-grid solar microgrids offer an immediate way to power giant-scale AI data centers. The generation is mature, suitable land parcels are known in the southwestern United States and this solution is probably faster than most, if not all, alternatives.
The actual emergency, obviously, is with the climate. The past two years were the hottest ever recorded. In 2023, Canadian fires filled American skies with choking smoke; 2024 saw Hurricane Helene devastate southern Appalachia; 2025 dawned with the Los Angeles inferno. For years, activists tried to persuade Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency, mostly in an effort to focus attention and action on the crisis. Biden instead worked hard to build out clean energy through the Inflation Reduction Act, virtuous work that got him, and the climate crisis, almost no attention at all.
So now we find ourselves at an Orwellian moment, almost a Seussian one. Our leader has declared a fake emergency about energy, so that we can do more of something—drilling for oil and gas—that causes the actual emergency now devastating our second most populous city. It’s entirely possible that Trump’s gambit will succeed in confusing voters, and it’s almost certain that it will confuse much of the media, which has a history of following whatever squirrel he lets out of the cage.
But it is unlikely to fool the Chinese, who are bringing in renewable forces faster than anyone else. And it will almost certainly not confuse the planet’s glaciers and ice caps, which will continue to melt, nor its forests and grasslands, which will continue to burn, nor its seas, which will continue to rise. When we need to describe the folly of our leaders, we evoke the example of King Canute, striking the sea with his scepter to hold back the waves. Canute, however, was more astute than our old edition of the legend: he really sought to show his flattering courtiers that his strength had limits. The 12th century English historian Henry of Huntingdon says that as he passed the water, Cnut declared: “Let all men know how empty and insignificant is the strength of kings, for there is none worthy of the name except Him who The sky, the earth and the sea obey eternal laws. He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix and never wore it again, “in honor of God the King Almighty. ”
Trump, of course, conveys the opposite of this pious and humble message. He confuses attention with truth (just as Biden confuses truth with attention). It’s an emergency, okay. ♦
Has an old Soviet mystery finally been solved?
Why mustard and spaghetti sauce rules don’t apply to ketchup.
How the Unabombers have avoided the death penalty.
The actress who magnified her fame by giving it up.
Calvin Klein Shared Party by Jeremy Allen White.
Fiction by Jamaica Kincaid: “Girl”
Sign up for our newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker.
Sections
Further
© 2025 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices