Among other things, Wheeler, a former coal and energy lobbyist, urged Trump to tout how “CO2 emissions went down” on his watch while the U.S. “became more energy dominant.”
“If you get push back during rebuttal and you need another point:” Wheeler added, “Joe Biden is shutting down U.S. energy, canceling pipelines, stopping federal leases.”
While Republicans have relentlessly accused Biden of being “at war with” fossil fuels and destroying so-called Trump-era “energy dominance,” U.S. production of crude oil and exports of natural gas have soared during the president’s tenure.
It is also worth noting that during his time at the helm of EPA, Wheeler sought to have it both ways on carbon emissions, as HuffPost previously reported. When emissions fell from 2016 to 2017, he argued it was because Trump’s deregulatory agency had spurred innovation in the energy sector. When they rose sharply in 2018, Wheeler attributed it primarily to Trump having triggered “an uptick in manufacturing and industrial output.”
Trump’s decision to share debate talking points ahead of time seemingly left the Biden camp scratching its head.
“Donald Trump is just posting his debate talking points,” Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesperson, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Thanks I guess.”