Does Trump’s Interior Secretary Know What a Battery Is?
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum thinks that solar energy is a bad idea because sometimes it’s night.
During an appearance on Fox Business Thursday morning, Burgum showcased his dim understanding about wind and solar energy while railing against green energy subsidies.
“We’ve had times where, in the last couple of days, in spite of the hundreds of billions of dollars this country has spent on wind, we only had like 1 percent, or 2 percent of electricity being generated by wind,” Burgum said. “And of course, when the sun goes down, you have a catastrophic failure called sunset and there’s no solar energy produced, and yet we’re subsidizing these things that are intermittent, unreliable, and expensive.”
It was Burgum’s easy dismissal of the earth’s primary energy source as “intermittent” or “unreliable” that rang particularly ridiculous, leading some online to question whether the failed presidential candidate had forgotten about the existence of batteries.
In North Dakota, where Burgum previously served as governor, renewable energy, including wind and solar, account for more than 40 percent of the state’s electricity, according to recent data from the Energy Information Administration.
While Burgum backs Trump’s efforts to strip renewable energy projects as part of the path toward energy dominance, China has doubled down on its solar power investments.
Earlier this month, Trump issued an executive order to “end market distorting subsidies” for green energy projects, directing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to take actions to “strictly enforce the termination of the clean electricity production and investment tax credits.” That order flew in the face of the president’s own behemoth budget bill, which included an amendment to ease the phaseout of tax credits for solar and wind energy under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act until 2027. It’s tough luck trusting the president.
This week, the Interior Department announced that it would end “special treatment for unreliable energy sources, such as wind,” in accordance with Trump’s directives. The department would also conduct a “careful review of avian mortality rates,” following the president’s many rants that windmills kill birds, which they do, but no more than fossil fuel operations—or house cats. Earlier this week, the president also claimed that offshore windmills were driving whales “loco.”
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has, yet again, managed to punt Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff deadline down the road.
“I have just concluded a telephone conversation with the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, which was very successful in that, more and more, we are getting to know and understand each other,” wrote Trump on Truth Social on Thursday. “The complexities of a Deal with Mexico are somewhat different than other Nations because of both the problems, and assets, of the Border,” he continued.
“We have agreed to extend, for a 90 Day period, the exact same Deal as we had for the last short period of time, namely, that Mexico will continue to pay a 25% Fentanyl Tariff, 25% Tariff on Cars, and 50% Tariff on Steel, Aluminum, and Copper. Additionally, Mexico has agreed to immediately terminate its Non Tariff Trade Barriers, of which there were many,” Trump wrote, without specifying what “Non Tariff Trade Barriers” would be affected.
Sheinbaum now has 90 more days of the current tariff levels to reach a trade deal with the U.S., according to Trump’s post.
Trump had promised Friday, August 1 as the deadline for implementing a 30 percent tariff on America’s southern neighbor and largest trading partner. But despite his assurances that this deadline is a hard one, Sheinbaum has succeeded in negotiating her way out of the ultimatum.
It’s not the first time: In March, Trump delayed tariffs against Mexico and Canada after a conversation with Sheinbaum, calling her a “very wonderful woman.” The deft negotiation on Sheinbaum’s part earned her the nickname of “world’s leading Trump whisperer” from The Washington Post.
As of now, the Friday deadline remains for countries around the world to come to a deal with Trump or risk incurring so-called “reciprocal” tariffs of up to 50 percent. But whether these tariffs will actually go into effect is yet to be seen—and the finance sector doesn’t seem too convinced. Back in April, after the president announced his shocking “Liberation Day” tariffs across the globe, stocks plummeted and many economists promised a recession.
But then Trump backed down, earning his policies the nickname “TACO”: Trump Always Chickens Out. This time, the boy who cried tariffs has yet to strike fear into the heart of the market, with Wall Street investors predicting—well, exactly what just happened.
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday issued a memo ordering recipients of federal funding to scrap a stunning array of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives—including antidiscrimination protections.
It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to eliminate DEI programs meant to address inequities stemming from historical injustices such as discrimination, on the grounds that they themselves amount to discrimination.
The new guidance, per Bondi, applies to........© New Republic
