Trump torn apart for dumping billions to prop up dying industry

President Donald Trump is reportedly set to announce an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars for a dying industry, after he already paid out billions to try and kill off one of its biggest competitors, prompting online observers from across the political spectrum to rake his questionable "art of the deal" over the coals.

On Thursday, CBS senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs took to X to report, based on sources close to the matter, that Trump was set to announce a $700 million investment "for 13 current coal plants plus two new ones," continuing his obsession with propping up the long-suffering American coal industry. Despite coal making up an increasingly minuscule portion of energy production and consumption in the U.S., Trump has spent significant political capital on propping up the industry, possibly on account of the support he gets from its workers and business leaders.

To that end, earlier this year, it was announced that his administration had nearly a billion dollars to get the French energy conglomerate, TotalEnergies, to halt the production of new wind farms off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, in order to promote further investments in fossil fuels and coal. This particular move also fit with Trump's longstanding hatred of wind turbines, an animosity that seems to relate, at least in part, to when a wind farm went up off the coast of his golf course in Scotland.

In response to Jacobs' scoop, users across X were unsparing in their derision, ripping Trump for continuing to waste precious tax dollars to keep the U.S. from joining the rest of the world in pursuing green energies.

"Trump cancelled less expensive, less pollution from clean energy. Now Trump is forcing tax dollars into more expensive, toxic coal plants instead," Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson posted about the news. "You pay more AND you get more toxins. Art of the deal."

"The art of the deal: pay billions of dollars to take offshore wind farms offline," reporter Sam Stein wrote in a post. "Then pay hundreds of millions of more to prop up coal plants."

"Stupidity breeds more stupidity," Arizona politician Dennis Kavanaugh wrote in response to Stein.

"The whole entire world is moving to green energy," Joanne Carducci, a popular left-wing online commentator, wrote in response to Jacobs' original post. "We’re so f——."

Liberal and left-wing users were far from the only ones taking issue with the news, as Marc Short, the former chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, ripped Trump for making yet another move in defiance of free-market principles.

"Just another step toward a managed economy and away from a free economy," Short posted.