On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump sat down with the “Full Send” podcast for nearly an hour.
Why? Who knows! (It does have more than 1 million YouTube subscribers and the likes of Donald Trump Jr. and MAGA favorite Candace Owens have appeared on it.) During that conversation, the topic of Ukraine – and Russia’s invasion – came up. Which led to this exchange between host Kyle Forgeard and the 45th president:
Forgeard: “What do you see happening next then? ‘Cause it seems like the tensions are high. How does this all end? Is this going to be like a long-term thing? How do you see it unfolding?
Trump: “Well, and I said this a long time ago, if this happens, we are playing right into their hands. Green energy. The windmills. They don’t work. They’re too expensive. They kill all the birds. They ruin your landscapes. And yet the environmentalists love the windmills. And I’ve been preaching this for years. The windmills. And I had them way down. But the windmills are the most expensive energy you can have. And they don’t work. And by the way, they last a period of 10 years and by the time they start rusting and rotting all over the place, nobody ever takes them down. They just go on to the next piece of prairie or land and destroy that.”
This is not a joke. That is actually what he said. You can watch it for yourself here.
When asked how Russia’s invasion into Ukraine ends, the former President of the United States went into a riff on windmills and how they don’t work. Yup.
While that is super weird given the question he was asked, it’s not an uncharacteristic riff for Trump. He’s been consistent on very few things in his life, but his hatred of windmills – as I laid out recently here – is definitely one of them.
A quick bit of history: When Trump bought land in Scotland to build a golf course and resort, he opposed a plan to build wind turbines on the country’s coast. “I want to see the ocean, I do not want to see windmills,” Trump said in 2006.
In a speech to the Scottish Parliament in 2012, Trump went further. “I am an expert on tourism,” he said. “If you dot your landscape with these horrible, horrible structures, you will do tremendous damage. … Many countries have decided they don’t want wind, because it doesn’t work without massive subsidies, it kills massive amounts of birds and wildlife, and there are lots of other reasons.”
Trump eventually lost that fight, as 11 wind turbines were built in 2018.
Trump also frequently criticized windmills during his presidency. In a 2019 speech to House Republicans, Trump said: “If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75% in value. And they say the noise causes cancer.” (I can’t believe I have to say this, but the noise from windmills does not, in fact, cause cancer.)
Later that same year, Trump went on another rhetorical screed against windmills. “I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much,” Trump said. “They’re noisy. They kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen in your life.”
So, yeah. He really doesn’t like windmills.
What was Trump trying to say in his response on Ukraine on Wednesday? If I had to guess, he wanted to talk about how America has to become more energy independent – a point on which he and President Joe Biden agree – so they aren’t dependent on oil from countries like Russia and Iran. And that that process of energy independence has been slowed by liberals who are pushing for “green energy” rather than more fossil fuel-driven energy.
But, man, there are a whole lot of elisions of thought in Trump’s answer. Just major logic gaps and, you know, explanations for what he is saying. All I know is that he thinks windmills are bad. Like, really bad.