WASHINGTON At a private meeting of conservatives in Cleveland this summer, Donald Trumps 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 Trumps 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 Moores 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.

Moores 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 Trumps 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 Trumps plans to maintain costly programs like Social Security, hes also proposed a massive tax cut and pledged to balance the federal budget within seven years. Yet anyone who looks closely at Trumps 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.

Im going to press as hard as possible to [eliminate the agencies], Moore said. Were 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, youve 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 dont know if hed shut it down, but theres a good chance the energy subsidies are going to be on the chopping block. I havent 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.

So far, Trump has given only one speech on energy policy, back in May. But as Moore explained in the Council for National Policy meeting, fossil fuels will be a major piece of Trumps economic plan, both in terms of generating revenue and in terms of putting unemployed workers back to work.

If we promote American energy and use our coal, and our oil, and our natural gas and nuclear power, not only can the United States be energy-independent in five or six years, we can be the dominant energy power in the world, Moore said at the meeting.

Youre talking about 6 to 8 million more jobs. And these are trucking jobs, construction, engineering, pipe-fitting jobs, welding jobs. I think Trump has a great chance to go to these industrial unions and tell them, Ill put your members to work and create new jobs, unlike these lunatics over here, like Tom Steyer and Hillary Clinton, who want to put you out of business. So thats a big big part of the agenda.

Moores lust for oil and coal is well known in conservative circles, and his most recent book, Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy, makes it pretty clear where he stands. When Moore signed on to advise the Trump campaign, he was working as a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that also helped Trump come up with his infamous list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

Moores first task for Trump was to devise the candidates energy policy ahead of a speech Trump gave in North Dakota on May 26. Thanks to Moore, unlimited drilling, fracking and mining has become one of the four pillars of Trumps Economic Vision .

At the Council for National Policy meeting, Moore reiterated that Trump will lift any and all restrictions on fossil fuel production. The millions of jobs this will create, he said, can be filled by the same disaffected blue collar workers who form the base of Trumps electoral support.

Moores plan is almost genius, except for the fact that it relies entirely on the presumption that global energy prices will be high enough to make all this drilling and mining worthwhile for the energy companies. Currently, oil and gas prices are so low that many of North Dakotas famed natural gas wells cant even afford to operate, leaving thousands of rig workers without jobs.