Inside Trump’s climate decision: After fiery debate, he ‘stayed where he’s always been’
dict was the same as his initial, gut-level one, according to this account of Trump’s decision- making process, which is based on interviews Thursday with more than a dozen administration officials, Trump confidants, Republican operatives and European diplomats.
Even so, the president listened and moderated months of often heated, and at times downright contentious, discussions among his own advisers, as well as scores of outsiders.
“He’s stayed where he’s always been, and not for a lack of trying by those who have an opposite opinion,” said Kel- lyanne Conway, counsellor to the president.
“He started with a conclusion and the evidence brought him to the same conclusion.”
Nonetheless, the debate over what Trump should ultimately do – stay in the deal to push for changes or fully pull out –roiled the administration.
The fight pit Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, the president’s top strategist Steve Bannon and White House Counsel Don McGahn – who all pushed for a total withdrawal – against Ivanka Trump, economic chief Gary Cohn and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who argued the president would have more leverage by remaining an active participant in the climate deal.
During a series of meetings with the president, Bannon, Pruitt and their allies came armed with reams of documents filled with numbers and statistics showing what they claimed would be the negative impacts on the US economy if the U.S. remained in the climate deal.
“They were, in the words of one Republican in frequent contact with the White House, “ready to go to trial.”
“They were presenting facts and figures” Conway said. “They were really im- portant. That was the evidentiary case.”
Some of those opposed to pulling out of the pact, however, said much of the data the other side presented was either erroneous, scientifically dubious, misleading or out of date.
The Paris pact was a particular passion for Bannon, who spent the past two weeks consumed by the climate deal, including working feverishly from the West Wing after returning early from Trump’s foreign trip, according to two White House officials familiar with the discussions.
He pressed his case directly with the president – arguing that the Paris accord was a product of globalism and unpopular with Trump’s base – and also worked with Pruitt to tilt the talks in that direction, providing political ballast to the policy and legal arguments made by others on his side.
Some of the ef forts to dissuade Trump from withdrawing actually had the reverse effect, further entrenching his original position.
When Trump heard advocates arguing that the era of coal was coming to an end –something Cohn told reporters on last week’s foreign trip and also a frequent talking point by some cable news pundits – Trump only became more adamant that pulling out of the Paris pact could help rescue the U.S. coal industry, said a Republican operative in close contact with the White House. - The Washington Post