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The White House’s real position on bringing back coal jobs was revealed after Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn made it clear in a meeting with reporters that coal isn’t even good feedstock anymore, and the future of American energy is in natural gas, solar, and wind.

Here is what Cohn told reporters according to The White House Press Pool:



Cohn’s comments are the opposite of what Trump promised during the campaign when he said, “We’re going to get those miners back to work … the miners of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week, Ohio and all over are going to start to work again, believe me. They are going to be proud again to be miners.”

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The truth is that the coal jobs are gone, and they aren’t coming back. Trump lied to former and current coal miners in places like West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Western Pennsylvania.

Coal company bankruptcies and job losses in the Appalachian region weren’t caused by “federal regulations” as the company owners and Republicans like to claim. Automation within the industry, the natural gas boom, and declining international demand for coal are the real reasons behind the decline.

It was a rare moment of truth from the Trump administration that is likely to be walked back by the White House. The coal jobs aren’t coming back. Trump’s advisers know this even as the President continues to sell a fantasy to a depressed economic region of a coal based revival that is never going to come.