Donald Trump earned the endorsement of coal giant Bob Murray on Monday, a week after the two met behind closed doors at the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s Fifth Avenue office.
“He’s got his head on right,” the Ohio-based CEO of Murray Energy Corp. reportedly said of Trump during a speech Monday at the annual Virginia Coal and Energy Alliance conference.
According to Murray, who supported former GOP nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 and held a private fundraiser for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz earlier this election cycle, Trump is “the horse to ride” and is being advised by people in support of an energy policy agenda similar to his own.
One of those advisers is North Dakota Rep. Kevin Cramer, who recently sent the Trump campaign a four-page policy paper outlining what he believes is an “all-of-the-above, America-first energy message.” Like Trump, Cramer is an avowed climate change skeptic.
Murray said Trump agreed with him on many points, even if he remains a bit of an energy policy novice.
During their meeting, Murray reportedly suggested Trump make it easier to export liquefied natural gas. Liquefied natural gas is natural gas that has been turned into a liquid to be stored and transported more easily.
Trump responded by asking Murray, “What’s LNG?”
Trump, who won West Virginia’s GOP primary on May 10 after promising to “get [the] miners back to work,” is slated to speak at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference on Thursday in Bismarck, N.D.
The candidate has yet to articulate what his energy policy would look like if he’s elected president, but he is expected to release details soon.
