Jesse Marx

The Desert Sun

Donald Trump believes the windmill farms north of Palm Springs and visible from Interstate 10 are "the worst thing you've ever seen."

The Republican presidential candidate was talking Tuesday on Herman Cain’s radio show when the topic turned to coal and alternative energy sources. The problem with wind, Trump said, is that it’s “very, very expensive” and “only works when it’s windy,” although he clarified that he’s not opposed to renewable sources on principle.

Instead, Trump complained that America is “destroying our energy companies with regulation” and asked Cain if he’d “ever been to Palm Springs, California — it looks like a junkyard.”

Cain said he had.

Trump continued: “Each one is made by a different group from, all from China and from Germany, by the way – not from here. And you look at all these windmills, half of them are broken, and they’re rusting and rotting. You know, you’re driving into Palm Springs, California, and it looks like a poor man’s version of Disneyland. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen."

READ MORE: Candidate Donald Trump, the man who hates our windmills

He then complained about birds and eagles that have been killed by the turbines. “You know, they put you in jail if you kill an eagle. And yet these windmills [kill] them by the hundreds.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told The Desert Sun in 2014 that it had confirmed just two golden eagle deaths in the San Gorgonio Pass area over the previous 17 years. It wasn’t clear how those birds had died. Officials also estimated at the time that about 20 golden eagles are killed each year by the region’s wind turbines, out of about 120 golden eagle deaths annually at California wind farms.

More of the Trump interview transcript is available through the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The candidate has been complaining about the Palm Springs skyline for years. In 2012, he said the city had been "absolutely destroyed" by the windmills. "Very very sad!"

In 1993, he golfed in the local Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, which has been more recently named the Humana Challenge. He later entered into a deal with the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians to manage the Spotlight 29 Casino and was fired.

READ MORE: How Donald Trump got fired by a California casino

This article is part of the Insider column, a weekly roundup of political and public policy news. The full column runs every Sunday in The Desert Sun. Reach the author at jesse.marx@desertsun.com and @marxjesse on Twitter.