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Behind Closed Doors, Donald Trump's Adviser Explains His Real Economic Plan

The departments of Commerce and Energy are out. Millions of new drilling and mining jobs are in.

WASHINGTON ― At a private meeting of conservatives in Cleveland this summer, Donald Trump’s senior economic adviser, Stephen Moore, said the candidate planned to pay for his costly proposals by eliminating the departments of Commerce, Energy and Education; lifting all restrictions on mining, drilling and fracking; ending Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, and offering rust-belt factory workers new jobs on oil rigs and steel mills.

Speaking at the private summer meeting of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive group of powerful conservatives, Moore, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, also described how Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions had “infiltrated” Trump’s campaign operation, and how Moore and other supply-side economists were working hard to get Trump to be more supportive of free trade.

An audio recording of Moore’s question-and-answer session with CNP vice president Bill Walton was posted online a few weeks after the July 14 conference, but has not been reported on until now.

Moore’s description of how a Trump administration would pay for its programs is not something that Trump himself talks about much on the stump. A consummate showman, Trump prefers to play to his crowds. In front of blue-collar audiences, he touts his plans for trade protectionism and building a wall with Mexico. For older voters, Trump promises not to make any changes to Social Security or Medicare benefits.

This “something for everyone” message is a key part of Trump’s popular appeal to voters, and it helps to set him apart from hardcore anti-government conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), whose most memorable campaign pledge was to abolish the Internal Revenue Service.

On top of Trump’s plans to maintain costly programs like Social Security, he’s also proposed a massive tax cut and pledged to balance the federal budget within seven years. Yet anyone who looks closely at Trump’s proposals comes away with the same question: How would a Trump administration pay for all this?

For starters, Moore said, major cabinet-level agencies should be eliminated. Walton asked him specifically about eliminating the departments of Commerce, Education and Energy. Together, these agencies employ an estimated 150,000 people, and they oversee things ranging from nuclear security to federal student loans to the U.S. patent system.

“I’m going to press as hard as possible to [eliminate the agencies],” Moore said. “We’re putting a budget together right now that is going to not only pay for the tax cut, but balance the budget in six or seven years. And to do that, you’ve got to make very significant cuts in those kinds of programs.

“I mean, my God, why do we need an Energy Department?” Moore asked, semi-exasperated. “All the Energy Department has done in the last 25 years is make energy prices more expensive!”

In an interview Friday, Moore said he has spoken to Trump about eliminating the Energy Department. “I don’t know if he’d shut it down, but there’s a good chance the energy subsidies are going to be on the chopping block. I haven’t talked to him about the Education Department, so I was speaking for myself. As for Commerce, I call it the department of corporate welfare, and I know Trump has been specific about ending the crony corporate welfare systems.”

A spokeswoman for Trump said Moore “is one of many different outside advisors to the campaign, but is speaking on his own behalf.”

A few days after his speech to the Council for National Policy, Moore talked to Fox News about how Trump might balance the budget as president. Watch the video, below.