Trump says Biden 'has no idea what's happening' seconds before claiming AOC 'wants wind' that will kill 'all the birds'

• President Donald Trump suggested former Vice President Joe Biden has a diminished mental state and seconds later accused New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of wanting wind energy that "kills all the birds."
• "Joe has absolutely no idea what's happening," Trump said. "AOC is a disaster. She wants all fossil fuel out. She wants everything out. She wants wind, which is expensive — kills all the birds. You know, I'm also an environmentalist. But wind is a disaster."
• Trump's vendetta against wind turbines predates his presidency, and he's repeatedly said windmills kill birds, prevent people from watching television, lower property values, and cause cancer.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump suggested former Vice President Joe Biden has a diminished mental state and seconds later accused New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of wanting wind energy that "kills all the birds."

Biden "has absolutely no idea what's happening," Trump told the Washington Examiner when asked Thursday about Biden collaborating with Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on a climate change panel.

Trump said the move would cost Biden the state of Pennsylvania in the upcoming general election, adding, "If you asked him who he named, he wouldn't even know it."

"Joe has absolutely no idea what's happening," Trump said. "AOC is a disaster. She wants all fossil fuel out. She wants everything out. She wants wind, which is expensive — kills all the birds. You know, I'm also an environmentalist. But wind is a disaster."

It's not the first time the president has lamented about renewable wind energy.

"I've studied it better than anybody I know. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much," he said in December during a speech to young conservatives in Palm Beach, Florida. "They're noisy. They kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go. Take a look … Go under a windmill someday. You'll see more birds than you've ever seen, ever, in your life."

"They'd be knocking out those birds left and right," Trump said at a December 10 campaign rally in Pennsylvania. He also made a joke about climate change, saying, "Darling, there's no wind – the damn wind just isn't blowing like it used to because of global warming, I think."

"It's like a graveyard for birds," Trump said in April 2019. "If you love birds, you'd never want to walk under a windmill."

(Wind turbines are responsible for 140,000 to 328,000 bird deaths per year, but researchers in 2018 came up with a way to alert wind farm operators to the presence of birds during peak times to lower the number of avian deaths.)

Trump's vendetta against wind turbines predates his presidency. In 2006, he complained about plans to build an offshore wind farm that would be visible from his upcoming golf club in Scotland, the Trump International Golf Links, located outside the city of Aberdeen.

In 2011, when formal construction plans for the wind farm were submitted, Trump filed a complaint with the Scottish government about the "horrible idea of building ugly wind turbines directly off Aberdeen's beautiful coastline."

The project moved forward despite Trump's complaints, and the wind farm was completed in May 2018. Last year, the Trump Organization also agreed to pay $290,000 to the Scottish government to end the multi-year legal fight.

Trump's disdain for wind power has since carried over into his presidency, and he's accused them of causing cancer and preventing people from watching television when the wind isn't blowing.

Last August, while visiting a petrochemical complex in Pennsylvania, he opined on the matter, raging about "big windmills" that "destroy everybody's property values, kill all the birds."

"And then, all of a sudden, it stops; the wind and the televisions go off," he added. "And your wives and husbands say, 'Darling, I want to watch Donald Trump on television tonight. But the wind stopped blowing and I can't watch. There's no electricity in the house, darling.'"

"If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value," he said last April, adding that "the noise causes cancer."

(There is no evidence that windmills lower property values, prevent people from watching television, or cause cancer.)