During last night's final presidential debate, Democratic nominee Joe Biden claimed Donald Trump had said that wind turbines cause cancer. But did the president actually say this?
The comments came during an exchange in which Trump claimed Biden's plans for tackling climate change would cost "$100 trillion."
In response, the Democratic nominee accused the president of making up the figure. "I don't know where he comes up with these numbers. $100 trillion? Give me a break," Biden said. "[My] plan has been endorsed by every major environmental group and every labor group. Labor! Because they know the future lies in us being able to breathe, and they know there are good jobs in getting us there.
"And by the way, the fastest growing industry in America is solar energy and wind. He thinks wind causes cancer... windmills," Biden said, in an apparent reference to wind turbines. It's the fastest growing jobs. We can grow and we can be cleaner if we go the route I'm proposing."
In April this year, Trump criticized wind power in a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner, claiming that the turbines—which he also mistakenly referred to as windmills—could cause cancer.
"They say the noise causes cancer," Trump said at the dinner as he mimicked the sound of a turbine.
Some anti-wind power groups have claimed that low frequency noises produced by the turbines can lead to health problems, such as nausea, sleep loss and anxiety.
But there is no credible evidence to suggest that these low frequency sounds—known as infrasound—cause harm to the human body or lead to the development of cancer, The Atlantic reported.
During Thursday's debate, Trump said Biden's climate plan would be an "economic disaster."
"Look, their real plan costs $100 trillion. If we had the best year in the history of our country for hundred years we would not even come close to a number like that. This is the craziest plan that anybody has ever seen."
But Biden has said his climate plan would cost around $2 trillion over four years. On Thursday, he said this part of this funding would go towards improving the energy efficiency of millions of buildings and infrastructure, as well as the creation of 50,000 recharging stations for electric vehicles.
"Global warming is an existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it," Biden said. "And we're told by all the leading scientists in the world, we don't have much time. We're going to pass the point of no return with the next eight to 10 years," saying he would take the decision to rejoin the Paris climate accord if he became president.
Trump said he withdrew the United States from the accord because "we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars. I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars. We were treated very unfairly when they put us in there."
"I will not sacrifice tens of millions of jobs, thousands of companies," he said.