President Donald Trump continued to be the target of ridicule for his unsubstantiated claim that windmills could cause cancer. The latest to pile on the president is comedian and author Chelsea Handler.
"My mother passed away from cancer," tweeted Handler on Thursday afternoon, "and I can say with almost 100% certainty that it was not caused by windmills."
The TV personality was obviously mocking Trump's claim from Tuesday night, where he told the guests at a National Republican Congressional Committee dinner that he was against wind power because he claimed it not only hurt real estate values but could do physical harm to humans.
My mother passed away from cancer, and I can say with almost 100% certainty that it was not caused by windmills.
— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) April 4, 2019
"If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value." said Trump. "And they say the noise causes cancer."
The president did not — and has not since — attempted to clarify this statement or provide any evidence as to why he would make such a claim.
Wind turbines do give off a low-frequency noise, but no research has ever shown that these cause any harm to humans, let alone that they are cancerous. However, the fossil fuels that Trump has repeatedly lauded as clean and good for the economy, do release chemicals and particulates that have been associated with higher rates of cancer.
The president's comments resulted in widespread derision from his critics, who used the cancer claim to mock Trump.
"Of course windmills cause cancer," Late Show host Stephen Colbert said Wednesday night. "That's why everyone in Holland is dead. Also, noise does not cause cancer. Although, I believe listening to Donald Trump might cause brain damage."
Congressman Ted Liu of California used the trending #WindmillsCauseCancer hashtag to poke fun at Trump, but later expressed regrets that he may have inadvertently helped convince some of the president's supporters that this untrue cancer claim was legitimate.
Trump's anti-windmill statements from Tuesday are just the latest in his long war against the alternative energy source. Appearing at a tank factory in Lima, Ohio, in March, the president made the risible argument that people who depend on wind power would have to turn off their TVs if the wind wasn't blowing.
The president's dislike of wind power was also at the core of a decade-long legal dispute with the government of Scotland. In 2006, Trump tried to stop construction of offshore wind turbines near his new golf resort in Aberdeenshire, arguing they would ruin views from the waterfront. He not only lost that dispute, but in February, a court sided with the Scottish government and ordered Trump to pay the legal fees the country had accrued.
Handler's mother, Rita, passed away in 2006 following a 16-year battle with breast cancer.
"I was in London on my first book tour, and my sister called and said, 'I think you need to come home. She's dying,' " Handler recalled about her mother's last days in a 2016 interview with People. "I came home and slept in the hospital with my mom for a week. Then they took her to hospice."
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