Trump’s latest off-the-cuff made-up statements: Noise from wind turbines causes cancer (it doesn’t) and his father was born in Germany (he wasn’t)

Off-the-cuff made-up statement 1: Noise from wind turbines causes cancer (it doesn’t)

“Orange Julius Caesar” has never been a fan of renewable energy, but especially wind power. He’s often said that turbines kills birds (yes, but less often than other ways of generating power). He’s also said that it can’t work because sometimes the wind stops blowing, probably because the very stable genius has never heard of batteries or using more than one way to generating power.

But his latest pronouncement sounds like one of his off-the-cuff, provably false statements: “They say the noise [from wind turbines] causes cancer,” which he followed up with what he imagines are wind turbine sounds. Sadly yet predictably, there’ll be a segment of the “low information voter” population who’ll believe him.

New York Magazine astutely points out these facts about power generation and cancer:

Wind turbines do not cause cancer. Some people blame the noise for causing a variety of other health ailments, but these charges have zero scientific validity. Cancer is not caused by noises of any kind.

A power source that does cause many health problems, including cancer, is coal, an extremely dirty fuel Trump loves and has attempted to bolster, with almost no success. Aside from costing more to produce energy than other sources of power, and in addition to enormous air pollution side effects, coal also emits greenhouse gases in large amounts. Though this of course is another aspect of science Trump rejects.

Trump also said that his claim about wind turbines (which he insists on calling windmills, which are different) would get leaked to media, despite the fact that reports were very clearly present at the event.

Off-the-cuff made-up statement 2: His father was born in Germany (he wasn’t)

In an attempt to soften his approach and sell the claim that Germany wasn’t paying “its fair share” into NATO, Trump claimed that he had great respect for Germany, and that his father was “born in a very wonderful place in Germany” — although he never specified which wonderful place it was.

The reason he didn’t name where his father was born is that it wasn’t in Germany. There’s even a birth certificate to prove it:

Click the birth certificate to see it at full size.

The Guardian points out that this isn’t the first time that he’s made false claims about his father being born outside the U.S.. They also point out the irony of  this statement in light of his disproven conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. (a requirement for being President).