Trump mocks wind power: ‘When the wind doesn’t blow, just turn off the television’

President Trump on Wednesday mocked the idea of fostering wind power, suggesting that it would devalue property and undermine U.S. output of other energy forms.

Trump touted at an event in Ohio that the U.S. was the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the world. He suggested that would not have been the case had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election.

“Hillary wanted to put windmills all over the place,” he told workers at a tank factory in Lima, Ohio.

{mosads}Trump then mimicked a man telling his spouse to “turn off the television” when the wind doesn’t blow in order to save electricity. The joke was reminiscent of a similar line he delivered earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference in which derided the Green New Deal.

“Put the windmills up, and watch the value of your house if you’re in sight of a windmill — watch the value of your house go down by 65 percent,” he said Wednesday. “Wonderful to have windmills. And solar’s wonderful too, but it’s not strong enough, and it’s very very expensive.”

TRUMP on wind energy: “You know, Hillary wanted to put windmills all over the place. Let’s put up some windmills — when the wind doesn’t blow, just turn off the television darling, please. There’s no wind — please turn off the television quickly!” pic.twitter.com/HTDklSU13i

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 20, 2019

Trump campaigned on restoring coal mining jobs. Since taking office, his administration has rolled back regulations and the president has highlighted the boom in the energy industry as a sign of economic strength.

Former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said in an interview earlier this month that he sought to convince Trump to focus on promoting jobs in the solar sector given the industry’s potential longevity but that the president insisted the administration should keep its attention on coal jobs.

Trump has found fresh fodder in Democratic efforts to promote the Green New Deal, an ambitious proposal that seeks to reduce carbon emissions and focus on more environmentally friendly practices. The president previously quipped that the measure sounded like a “high school term paper that got a low mark.”