Trump appears to tie high bacon prices to ‘horrible’ wind energy

Donald Trump revived questions about his mental acuity after appearing to say that wind energy was to blame for the increased price and decreased consumption of bacon.

The former president's bizarre remarks came at a town hall-style campaign gathering in Wisconsin on Thursday, when an audience member asked the Republican nominee for November's White House election what he would do to help bring inflation down.

Trump delivered a lengthy answer, apparently saying that he blamed wind power for bacon being more costly and therefore eaten less.

Video clips of Trump's comments quickly made the rounds online and brought out critics in full force. Some detractors dismissed his answer as "incoherent" and "word salad".

On Friday, Mehdi Hasan - a broadcaster and author and a Guardian US columnist - posted the video of Trump's remarks on X and asked whether his answer would draw the same level of editorial scrutiny as comments from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris or her running mate Tim Walz.

"Will any of the army of factcheckers obsessed with Tim Walz's dog or Kamala Harris's McDonald's summer job be giving any attention to Donald Trump suggesting windmills cause high bacon prices?"

In another post featuring the video clips, Hasan argued that Trump should face the same kind of media pressure to end his run for president that preceded Joe Biden's decision to halt his re-election campaign after a poor performance at a 21 June debate.