6 Ridiculous Myths Promoted by Donald Trump: From Cancer Lightbulbs to ‘Global Cooling'
6 Bizzare Theories Promoted By Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump is known for his fiery rants on social media. But occasionally he switches it up by promoting fact-free theories. As per The New Yorker, Trump once claimed that the quality of his hairspray had been harmed by rules intended to preserve the ozone layer. He went on to state that those rules were erroneous as hairspray is mostly used indoors and cannot impact the environment outside. He also argued that vaccinations cause autism despite strong evidence to the contrary. Here are a few other bizarre things he has said over the years.
1. No Difference Between HIV and HPV
In 2018, Trump assumed that HIV and HVP were the same thing. As per NBC News, Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, was caught narrating on camera to workers about the Republican leader's 'scary' scientific theories. Gates claimed, that Trump on two occasions had asked, “...if vaccines weren't a bad thing because he was considering a commission to look into ill effects of vaccines." He further shared, "...somebody, Robert Kennedy Jr., was advising him that vaccines were causing bad things and I said, ‘No, that is a dead end, that would be a bad thing, do not do that.’” Mocking the business tycoon, Gates disclosed, “Both times he wanted to know the difference between HIV and HPV and so I was able to explain that those are things that are rarely confused with each other.” Sexually transmitted infections are most commonly caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) while HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, compromises immunity leading to AIDS.
2. F-35s Are Invisible
In 2020, the former president seemed obsessed with the functions of F-35 fighter jets and kept emphasizing that they worked in complete 'stealth' mode, not showing up on radars. As per MSNBC, he said, "With the Air Force, we're ordering a lot of planes, in particular the F-35 fighter jet, which is, you know, almost like an invisible fighter." He argued, "I was asking the Air Force guys, I said, 'How good is this plane?' They said, 'Well, sir, you can't see it.' I said, 'Yeah, but in a fight -- you know, a fight, like I watch in the movies -- they fight, they're fighting. How good is this?' They say, 'Well, it wins every time because the enemy cannot see it. Even if it's right next to it, it can't see it.' I said, 'That helps. That's a good thing.'"
3. Lightbulbs and Windmills Cause Cancer
In 2019, Trump claimed that energy-efficient light bulbs make him look orange. As per CNN, during a rally in Baltimore, he said, “The bulb that we’re being forced to use...to me, most importantly, the light’s no good. I always look orange! And so do you. The light is the worst.” The same year he promoted that wind energy caused cancer. As per The Washington Post, Trump referring to the energy policies of his 2016 presidential rival, argued, “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.” Earlier, in 2012, he also tweeted, "Remember, new 'environment-friendly' lightbulbs can cause cancer. Be careful-- the idiots who came up with this stuff don't care."
4. Global Warming is Not a Threat
In November 2012, the businessman-turned-politician tweeted that global warming was a Chinese product. "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive," he declared. A year later, he argued, "We should be focused on magnificently clean and healthy air and not distracted by the expensive hoax that is global warming!" In October 2015, he tweeted, "It's really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!" The same year, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, he shared, “I’m not a believer in man-made global warming. It could be warming, and it’s going to start to cool at some point. And you know, in the early, in the 1920s, people talked about global cooling…They thought the Earth was cooling. Now, it’s global warming…But the problem we have, and if you look at our energy costs, and all of the things that we’re doing to solve a problem that I don’t think in any major fashion exists.”
5. Asbestos Could Have Saved The Twin Towers
According to Mother Jones, in 2005, during the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting, Trump testified about his swift and elegant renovation plans for the United Nations building in New York. He said, “A lot of people say that if the World Trade Center had asbestos it wouldn’t have burned down, it wouldn’t have melted. O.K.? A lot of people in my industry think asbestos is the greatest fireproofing material ever made,” the real-estate tycoon opined. He deemed it a "heavyweight champion" compared to other building materials, which he likened to a "lightweight from high school.” In October 2012, Trump tweeted, “If we didn’t remove [the] incredibly powerful fire retardant asbestos and replace it with junk that doesn’t work, the World Trade Center would never have burned down."
6. Californian Wild Fires Can Be Prevented By Raking
In 2020, the former president blamed the Californian authorities for not 'cleaning up the forests', as per Politico. Subsequently, he threatened to withdraw federal funding in retaliation for earlier rounds of devastating flames. “I see again the forest fires are starting,” he said at a rally in Pennsylvania. “They’re starting again in California. I said, 'You gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like...so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.'” “Maybe we’re just going to have to make them pay for it because they don’t listen to us,” he added. “I’ve been telling them this now for three years, but they don’t want to listen,” Trump argued. Experts were puzzled over Trump's proposals, which they claim indicated his lack of an understanding of the physics behind the same.
