Trump says animals ‘jump on’ solar panels ‘and they fry’

Donald Trump has found the real victims of solar power: animals that, by his account, can’t stop jumping on the panels.

In Lubbock on Tuesday night, the windmills got the usual treatment first, “the most expensive form of energy,” then a challenge: “Name me one country that has lots of windmills that is solvent.” None, he answered himself. The solvent ones, he said, have natural gas, oil, coal and “some solar.” Just “not those big monsters that they put up all over,” which “kill all the animals.” Then the nature documentary: “You know, the animals jump on them and they fry.” The black panels, he explained, get very hot.

This was all part of his attack on James Talarico’s energy plans, a scam by his account, which is how a Texas Senate race ended up with a wildlife segment.

The famous solar bird deaths happened at a different kind of plant: Ivanpah in California, where fields of mirrors focus sunlight onto towers. A federal forensics study that also surveyed a regular panel farm found solar-flux burns only at Ivanpah. When Trump said in 2024 that rabbits were getting caught in solar fields, E&E News noted that utility-scale panels typically sit a meter or more off the ground, with plants and wildlife living underneath. The animals, it turns out, mostly go under.