Trump doesn't know what the letters ANWR mean
In the last three-and-a-half years, there may have been a time when Teleprompter Trump uttered the words “Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” but I can find no evidence that the Real Trump has done so.
I’ve thought that perhaps he knew the name, but stuck to the acronym to avoid saying
”wildlife refuge.” But now I think that he really believes ANWR is the proper name of the place.
On Fox News Monday he was asked about the announcement that his administration had approved drilling in the refuge, an easy question for any drilling advocate.
“Well, we’re looking at different things, we may or may not do it. We did do ANWR as you know. ANWR is a big deal that Ronald Reagan couldn’t get done. And nobody could get done. Everybody wanted it. Everybody said impossible,” said Trump.
The Fox host, trying to rescue Trump from himself, said the news report was that he had approved drilling in the refuge.
Trump again denied it, saying, "we are looking at different things.” He changed the subject, launching into a self-aggrandizing segment on how “I’ve been very good to Alaska.”
This confirms that he doesn’t know that ANWR means Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This confirms his non-existent grasp of the details.
At a GOP retreat on Feb. 1, 2018, Trump launched into his favorite origin story about drilling in ANWR, bragging about a provision in the giant GOP tax cut.
"And ANWR, one of the great potential fields anywhere in the world. And I never appreciated ANWR so much, a friend of mine called up who's in that world and in that business, said, 'Is it true that you're thinking about ANWR?' Said, 'Yeah, I think we're going to get it, but you know.'" He said, 'Are you kidding? That’s the biggest thing by itself.' Said Ronald Reagan and every president has wanted to get ANWR approved. And after that I said, 'Oh, make sure that's in the bill.'"
"It was amazing how that had an impact. That had a very big impact on me Paul (Ryan.) I really didn't care about it, and then when I heard that everybody wanted it for 40 years they'd been trying to get it approved, I said, 'Make sure you don't lose ANWR.'"
The Washington Post reported that as Trump told his tale, Sen. Dan Sullivan, who was in the crowd, yelled out at him, “We know you cared about ANWR all along though.”
This comment led to a bizarre story in the Washington Post headlined “GOP senator says Trump knows more about Alaska than his speech suggested.”
Sullivan, who never criticizes Trump, told a Post reporter that Trump was just pretending to know nothing about the refuge.
"No, no, no, look," Sullivan told the Post reporter. "We had the opportunity to brief the president last year. It was early, like February or March. Over an hour, in the Oval, you know, that's a lot of time.
Sullivan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski may have spent more than an hour “in the Oval” in early 2017, but perhaps Trump didn’t remember what he was told in the Oval. Sullivan claimed that Trump had been “rock solid” on opening ANWR all along.
But Trump has always claimed otherwise.
He has consistently said that he didn’t care or know anything about ANWR until his anonymous oil business friend alerted him to Reagan’s failure to get it.
On Dec. 17, 2017, the day that he signed the giant GOP tax cut, Trump first told the story about his anonymous friend at a press conference attended by Sullivan, Murkowski, Rep. Don Young and other GOP members of Congress.
"We've been trying to get that passed, the whole country, the world,” said Trump, quoting his anonymous friend. “They tried in Ronald Reagan, they tried with the Bushes, they tried with everybody. They never got ANWR.”
“But we got ANWR in this bill,” Trump said.
At that event, Rep. Don Young said, “I want to thank all these guys standing behind me, these ladies, the people that helped me do this. This is 37 years I tried to get this passed. It proves one thing: perseverance overcomes intelligence any day of the year.”
Trump repeated his ANWR tale at a cabinet meeting that same day. On April 14, 2018, he said it in Florida. He said it on May 30, 2018 in Nashville.
He also began to lie on a regular basis about the size of the oil prospect, falsely claiming that it is one of the largest or the largest oil field in the world.
“I was able to get ANWR in Alaska. It could be the largest site in the world for oil and gas. I was able to get ANWR approved. Ronald Reagan wasn't able to do it. Nobody was able to do it. They've been trying to do it since before Ronald Reagan. I got it approved,” he said a year ago in France.
In March 2019, he said it was “perhaps the largest field in the world, oil and gas. I got it approved. And I didn’t want to get it approved because I thought that someone had treated me very badly, very badly.”
This revisionist Trump history was a reference to Murkowski, who angered Trump in 2018 with her vote against Brett Kavanaugh, nearly a year after the tax bill and the ANWR provision had passed.
On April 24 this year, Trump repeated the lie about the oil prospects of ANWR at the White House as he signed a COVID-19 relief bill. “Ronald Reagan tried to get it approved; couldn’t do it. Every President tried to get ANWR, and they couldn’t do it. I got it approved,” Trump said.
Sullivan, standing behind Trump, said “Yes sir. Great.”
“But ANWR is perhaps the largest find in the world. Right? It could be,” says Trump.
It may be the best on-land prospect in North America, but no one who knows anything about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge believes that it contains the largest oil field in the world. Trump doesn’t even know the name.