Seth Meyers checks in on coal country to see if one of Trump's biggest campaign promises came true

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Late Night with Seth Meyers)

published 16 January 2019

While campaigning, President Trump made it a point to court rural voters, telling them that their lives would improve if he was elected. On Tuesday night, Seth Meyers decided to check in on one portion of the area dubbed Trump Country, to see if things really are on the upswing.

Meyers focused on West Virginia, where Trump made "impossible promises" to voters, telling them they would get "so tired of winning." "I don't think he gets how winning works," Meyers said. "You don't get tired of it. I've never heard a New England Patriots fan burning his Tom Brady jersey and moving to Cleveland."

Trump promised he would put coal miners back to work, and after he became president, he returned to West Virginia and crowed that he had "ended the war on beautiful, clean coal." A new report out earlier this month contradicts Trump's claims; coal mines are closing faster than ever, with more shuttering during the first two years of the Trump administration that the first four years of the Obama administration.

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This isn't because of regulations, but rather competition from cleaner and cheaper forms of energy. Meyers notes that this isn't even Trump's fault, "it's the march of time," but the problem is Trump gave a lot of coal miners false hope, and continues to insult them by saying they are incapable of doing any other jobs. Watch the video below for more on Trump's promises to coal miners, plus how cutting regulations on power plants is bad news for the air we breathe. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.