Biden mocks Trump with quip about ‘windmills causing cancer’ during White House meeting

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President Joe Biden made a dig at his predecessor Donald Trump on Wednesday during a White House meeting with chief executives of the US’s major electric utilities.

The president joined a roundtable with the CEOs and several members of his cabinet to talk about plans to decarbonize the US power grid and lower costs, while also safeguarding the infrastructure from increasingly extreme and more frequent climate-driven events.

The group spoke about the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy sources like wind and solar power.

“Generic question: are you getting less resistance when you talk about wind and windmills? I know they cause cancer,” President Biden quipped during the conversation.

“Bad joke,” Mr Biden added.

Gerald Anderson, chair of DTE Energy, responded that people have embraced wind power and are receptive to solar energy. “We expect that to be a well received renewable resource in the state,” he said.

Former President Trump made a number of baseless claims about wind energy during his time in office, including that windmill noise causes cancer.

During a speech at a Republican Congressional Committee dinner in 2019, Mr Trump said: “If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 per cent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer.”

There is no evidence that windmills cause cancer.

A 2014 report from the National Institutes of Health stated that wind turbines are not related to adverse health.

Iowa GOP Senator Chuck Grassley told reporters at the time that Mr Trump’s remarks were “idiotic” noting that he had long championed tax credits for wind energy.

Mr Trump has repeatedly made false statements about wind power. As far back as 2012, he griped that Scotland was “hellbent on destroying its coastline” with wind turbines, after a number were being constructed offshore of his golf resort in Aberdeenshire.