Coal and the Clean Power Plan | War on the EPA
Video 4 Transcript: Candidate Trump and the Coal Industry  

NARRATOR: It was the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign, and Murray headed off to New York to try to forge another political alliance. 

BOB MURRAY: I called Donald Trump's office at Trump Tower in New York. And when I walked into his office, he was alone. We talked for 50 minutes-- I can talk, he can talk-- about coal, about the connection between coal miners' jobs, coal miners' families. I, I was so impressed with him. 

NARRATOR: Trump began talking more about coal on the campaign trail, and soon he was holding rallies in West Virginia's coal country. 

DONALD TRUMP: I'm just glad to be here because I love you people, the real people. You're the real, real people. You make this country great-- remember that. (cheers and applause) 

NARRATOR: It would become a winning message. 

MYRON EBELL: I think he learned an awful lot about America that the other candidates missed. They didn't have ridiculous regulations that put you out of business. They didn't have these ridiculous rules and regulations that make it impossible for you to compete. 

KEVIN CRAMER: The coal miner became the perfect symbol for Donald Trump's message of making America great again by making America, you know, builders again. The connection between the coal miner as a symbol and what a coal miner does with his or her hands, and the big machines and whatnot, was the perfect symbol for the Rust Belt of America. That coalition, if you will, of cultures created what is, you know, the Donald Trump phenomenon. (cheering) 

REPORTER: This is a Fox News election alert. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. (crowd chanting "U.S.A.") 

NARRATOR: Coal country and the Rust Belt helped propel Trump to victory. 

REPORTER: Trump's victory built on the backs of white working-class voters for whom he was the candidate of hope and change.