Trump Revives Gripe About Wind Power in Rambling Call to Sean Hannity: 'Stop with All of the Windmills'

Steven Ferdman/WireImage Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump is reviving an old feud: one with wind power, which he frequently criticized during his tenure in the White House.

Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity in a rambling interview given via phone on Thursday, the 75-year-old Trump said that windmills were "ruining the atmosphere" and "killing the birds." (Birds die in other ways at far greater rates.)

"Stop with all of the windmills all over the place that are ruining the atmosphere. They're killing the birds," Trump said, adding: "You look at what's happening to these beautiful prairies and plains and these gorgeous areas of our country where they have these rusting hulks put up all over the place where— that are noisy, they're killing the birds."

Trump continued by claiming, falsely, that windmills are "probably the most expensive form of energy."

At another point in the interview with Hannity, the former president seemingly confused a metaphor abut the Biden administration "banging its head against the wall," referring instead to the actual wall that he long promised to build on the southern border while in office.

RELATED: Donald Trump Says Noise from Windmills 'Causes Cancer' — 'Idiotic,' GOP Senator Says

James Devaney/GC Images Donald Trump

A longtime skeptic of alternative energy, Trump has previously also alleged that wind power causes cancer.

"If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer," he said at a 2019 fundraiser for the Republican National Congressional Committee.

"And of course, it's like a graveyard for birds," Trump added. "If you love birds, you'd never want to walk under a windmill."

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley — a leading Republican and supporter of wind energy — spoke out against those comments at the time, which he called "first of all, idiotic."

A 2014 report from the National Institutes of Health found "that when sited properly, wind turbines are not related to adverse health."

RELATED: Ivanka, Donald Trump Jr. Fighting Subpoenas in New York Investigation of Family Company

USA Today has reported that some critics have linked wind farms to "annoyances that could disrupt sleep, induce headaches or even cause mild nausea."

Trump's distaste for windmills has been personal at times as well.

In 2015, he waged an ultimately unsuccessful legal battle to try and halt Scottish officials from building a wind-farm near his Aberdeen golf resort.

RELATED VIDEO: The Melania and Donald You Don't See, According to Ex-Aide

So irked was he by the proposed project, reports The New York Times, that he posted 100 derogatory tweets aimed at Scottish officials between 2012 and 2014.

In a speech to young conservatives in 2019, Trump again criticized windmills, which he claimed to have studied "better than anybody I know."

Want to get the biggest stories from PEOPLE every weekday? Subscribe to our new podcast, PEOPLE Every Day, to get the essential celebrity, entertainment and human interest news stories Monday through Friday.

"I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. They're noisy. They kill the birds," Trump said in the speech, as reported by The Guardian. "You want to see a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill someday. You'll see more birds than you've ever seen in your life."

He continued by saying the manufacture of windmills created "tremendous fumes."

"Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything," he said at the time, later adding: "You see all those [windmills]. They're all different shades of color. They're like sort of white, but one is like an orange-white. It's my favorite color, orange."