During an 80-minute speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) US President Donald Trump made the rather outlandish claim that the noise created by wind turbines causes cancer. Twitter was not impressed.

“Hillary wanted to put up wind, wind… If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations your house just went down 75% in value,” Trump said at the committee’s spring fundraising dinner in Washington, DC on Tuesday evening.

“And they say the noise causes cancer, you tell me,” he added.

Here's video of Trump talking about wind mills at the NRCC dinner tonight: "They say the noise causes cancer.” pic.twitter.com/tpsmZI8k7n — Brandon Wall (@Walldo) April 3, 2019

While wind turbine noise has been linked to stress, nausea, sleep loss, fatigue and anxiety there is currently no evidence that it can cause cancer. Online commentators were quick to demolish Trump for his offhand and ill-informed hot take on the impact of wind power on human health.

Research on the impact of windmill farms on property values has been largely inconclusive with some studies finding no impact while others allege up to a 40 percent devaluation.

Trump has, however, been a vocal proponent of coal power, which is known to cause a variety of health problems, including lung cancer.

Much better to have a coal-fired power station down the road! — Jeremy Cooper (@Cooperannuation) April 3, 2019 Every day, a new reason to be embarrassed by @POTUS. — Dewayne Dent (@dentpipe) April 3, 2019

“Someone’s gonna leak this whole damn speech to the media,” Trump said, seemingly oblivious to the reporters and C-SPAN cameras dotted around the room.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!