Trump pledges to bring back plan to drill for oil and gas in Alaska arctic wildlife refuge
Donald Trump pledged to bring back drilling in the Alaska arctic wildlife refuge if he becomes president.
Trump said:
We would have supplied the entire Asian continent. We would have supplied Asia. We would have supplied everybody. But we’ll have it redone very quickly … I actually got it approved in Congress as part of …the biggest tax cuts in history for this country. I got that approved in Congress. We got ANWR [Alaska National Wildlife Refuge] so they didn’t kill it in Congress, and I don’t think they ever could. So we’ll get it back very quickly. It’s going to be back very fast.
Trump added:
And it would have been great for Alaska but it would have also … been great for our country but we’ll have it approved very quickly.
In 2021, Trump’s administration auctioned off portions of ANWR to oil drillers but failed to attract much bidders.
Key events
In a review of Trump’s record responding to natural disasters, E&E also found a discrepency in aid he aftermath of Hurricane Michael, which primarily affected Florida, and Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
On March 9, 2019, Trump signed an order directing FEMA to pay 100 percent of most disaster costs in Florida. As a result, FEMA paid roughly $350 million more than it would have without Trump’s intervention, according to an E&E News analysis.
But less than two months earlier, Trump threatened to veto a disaster-aid measure in Congress that would have FEMA pay 100 percent of all disaster costs in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria killed more than 3,000 people.
According to Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ book, Trump said, “They love me in the Panhandle…I must have won 90 percent of the vote out there. Huge crowds. What do they need?”
The voting habits of residents did play into Donald Trump’s decision-making about disaster relief when he was president, reports E&E News.
The outlet interviewed Mark Harvey, Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council, who revealed that the former president refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018.
But Harvey said Trump changed his mind after Harvey pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa.
‘We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,’ said Harvey, who recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris alongside more than 100 other Republican former national security officials.
California’s governor Gavin Newsom, reacted to the report on Twitter/X, calling it a “glimpse into the future” if Trump is re-elected.
Joe Biden, meanwhile, wrote: “You can’t only help those in need if they voted for you. It’s the most basic part of being president, and this guy knows nothing about it.”
As Joe Biden visits the wreckage of Hurricane Helene, Donald Trump has been baselessly suggesting that the administration has ignored Republican victims and that federal aid is scarce because funds are being given to immigrants.
“They’re dying, and they’re getting no help from our federal government because their money has been spent on people that should not be in our country,” Trump told his supporters.
The Biden-Harris administration said that the government has provided $20m in “flexible, upfront funding” and deployed 5,000 federal personnel to aid in recovery.
“His competition that night? He cannot be president. He cannot be president of the United States,” Donald Trump said of JD Vance’s vice-presidential opponent, Tim Walz.
“How good did JD Vance do the other night?” Trump added, praising his running mate as the crowd descended into a cheers of “JD! JD!”
“I drafted the best athlete,” Trump continued.
Trump pledges to bring back plan to drill for oil and gas in Alaska arctic wildlife refuge
Donald Trump pledged to bring back drilling in the Alaska arctic wildlife refuge if he becomes president.
Trump said:
We would have supplied the entire Asian continent. We would have supplied Asia. We would have supplied everybody. But we’ll have it redone very quickly … I actually got it approved in Congress as part of …the biggest tax cuts in history for this country. I got that approved in Congress. We got ANWR [Alaska National Wildlife Refuge] so they didn’t kill it in Congress, and I don’t think they ever could. So we’ll get it back very quickly. It’s going to be back very fast.
Trump added:
And it would have been great for Alaska but it would have also … been great for our country but we’ll have it approved very quickly.
In 2021, Trump’s administration auctioned off portions of ANWR to oil drillers but failed to attract much bidders.
Donald Trump has switched his attacks on Joe Biden, calling him “the worst foreign policy president”.
The former president then went on to say: “We have to be too big to rig” before going on to repeat the falsehood that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
The crowd, highly energized, descended into a chant of “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Trump arrives on stage for rally in Saginaw, Michigan
Donald Trump has walked on stage to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
“We’re going to make America great again,” Trump said in his opening remarks before launching into a tirade against Kamala Harris, calling her a slew of names including “Lying Kamala”.
Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a rally shortly in Saginaw, Michigan.
Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates.
Here are some images coming through the news wires of Hurricane Helene and its aftermath across the country:
The Biden administration has provided nearly $4m directly to individuals and families in need of critical financial assistance, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said onboard an Air Force One gaggle as the president was en route to Tallahassee, Florida.
She went on to add:
Yesterday, we announced that the president approved 100% federal cost share for emergency response activities in Florida and Georgia, as well as Tallahassee [Tennessee] and North Carolina. This means that the federal government will cover 100% of the costs associated with things like debris removal, first responders, search and rescue, shelters, and mass feeding.
This latest announcement builds the president’s previously approved requests for major disaster declarations from the governors of Florida and Georgia, which unlocked additional assistance for residents on their road to recovery.