Subject: FW: TrackerBASE Report: PRES [OLD] Trump at Scottish Parliament Windfarm Committee Hearing 5/17/2016
From: "Sorbie, Sean" <[email-masked]>
To: Research_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 10:35:51 -0700

________________________________
From: American Bridge Tracking
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2016 1:35:46 PM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
To: TrackerBase Tracking Reports
Cc: Pete Howe
Subject: TrackerBASE Report: PRES [OLD] Trump at Scottish Parliament Windfarm Committee Hearing 5/17/2016

NAME: PRES - Trump at Scottish Parliament Windfarm Committee Hearing

STATUS: Reported

CANDIDATES: Trump, Donald

DATE|TIME: 04-25-12; N/A

TRACKER: Howe, Pete

LOCATION: Scottish Parliament Building; Edinburgh, UK

RE: PRES - Trump at Scottish Parliament Windfarm Committee Meeting

ATTENDEES: Unknown

MEDIA: Unknown

TIMESTAMPS:

2:35 Trump on mic; I appreciate the opportunity to speak; We’re addressing one of the most serious problems Scotland has had or will have; I believe in renewable energy, wave technology and hydro technology; Wind turbines are made in China and they’ll be the total destruction of your tourism industry here; They just put up a turbine on the Royal Aberdeen golf course and the members are going crazy; They didn’t know it was going to happen and they were blindsided; I brought some magazines along… I built everything I said I’d build except it came out even better than I promised; Debt free, very low debt on the property; I don’t want to see one of the greatest golf courses in the world which I built destroyed because of a monstrosity a mile away from it; This is a test center where they put up all kinds of windmills; Even if they put up the most attractive one of which there are none, it still wouldn’t be good; It’s inefficient and it kills lots of birds and wildlife; When you need wind the most, you never get it and the turbines are so ugly, noisy, and dangerous that if Scotland does this, you’ll lose your tourism industry to Ireland and other places that are laughing at you for what you’re doing with the turbines

18:15 Q: Share your resources for the assertions you’ve made about wind turbines?

A: The claim is about “appropriately placed” wind; Wind farms should be in industrial locations; You’ll have to support it for the rest of your lives but you shouldn’t ruin your countryside or the beauty of Scotland; It’s the most important thing about Scotland; I’m an expert on tourism; I’ve won many awards; I just built a hotel in Chicago that Travel & Leisure says is the best hotel in America; I have five star, five diamond, six star clubs, so I’m an expert on tourism; Dot your landscape with these horrible structures and you’ll do horrible damage

Q: Clinical evidence, not your opinion? Who produced it?

A: I am the evidence; I’m more of an expert than the people you want me to hire to make their paycheck; I’m considered a world class expert in tourism; I’m the evidence, I’m the expert

Q: Industrial power plant becoming a tourist attraction? Seems absurd, right?

A: All you have to take a walk over to Royal Aberdeen to see how that course has been destroyed; It can’t hold any more championships; It won’t hold any more of them; Look at what’s happened in the last 48h there; You’re bias but even you will see there won’t be tournaments there any more; One of the great jewels of Scotland has been ruined; They’re fighting all over to not have more windmills built, fighting like mad

25:20 Q: Efforts to increase tourism versus building of windmills?

A: Tiny population here; When you properly locate industrial turbines, they’re fine but you lose a lot of money otherwise; If Scotland pursues the goal of monsters all over the country, Scotland will go broke as surely as you’re sitting there; Being massively subsidized by the UK currently and if UK decides they’re not going to further subsidize these windmills, Scotland will go broke

Q: That’s not what I asked; I asked about how windmills hurt tourism?

A: I don’t know about your tourism specifically; All I know is that all of the golf courses are fighting this like mad because these gentlemen know it better than I do; Smart areas that want to remain viable economically for tourism are fighting windmills; Wonderful woman I work with came to see me because they built a turbine behind her house; She can’t sleep at night because of the flutter and nobody will buy her house; This is happening by the 10k’s all over Scotland; If I went to your community and spoke to people there, they wouldn’t be happy with what’s happened

30:30 Q: First windmill and turbine development in Scotland has been very beneficial; Would you deprive the people of the area that benefit?

A: They don’t like them; I’ll take your word for it that they do, but I’d be very surprised if that’s true

Q: Maybe they just don’t like the look of the turbines?

A: If they didn’t like the look, they’d go somewhere else

37:00 Q: Who made promises to you that these turbines wouldn’t be built?

A: When I first came to Scotland where my mother was born, I had the option to purchase the parcel of land and I was told a giant windmill farm was going to be built just off shore and I said okay but I won’t build there; The dunes of Scotland are great but we were going to go somewhere else to build since they wanted to build the turbine farm nearby; We had another piece of land in Ireland and it wasn’t my first choice but it was another option and I was going to go build there; It was a big hooplah here; You probably remember; I was told by reps from your country that it wouldn’t be built due to shipping lanes, etc. and based on that, I went forward with this land; I built something here that even my enemies say is spectacular; It’s going to be great for Aberdeen, Scotland, and everyone else involved; After I’ve made the purchase and developed it, this really ugly windmill farm appears and it’s going to look like Disneyland except an ugly version; I feel betrayed because I invested based on what I was promised but those promises were not kept; People are investing all over the place but when they see the way I’ve been treated by Scotland, they’re not going to invest in Scotland; I told them it was very important to me

41:35 Q: Why just secure a verbal promise instead of a formal one then?

A: I didn’t think it’d be an issue; Ministry of Defense was against the wind farm; They’re against the current one too; I didn’t think it was necessary because MoD said they were against it; I got lured in, spent money, and now I might regret it; People aren’t going to invest in Scotland now because they’ve watched the way I’ve been treated

Q: We were more economically viable when we promised that, now we’re less viable; Response?

A: I’ve invested tens of millions of pounds with no debt at the site, no mortgage, no finance, nothing; Other projects are going down the tubes… Going bust while I invest more and more in my 2k acre site; It’s the best golf course anywhere in the world just like I said it would be; I’m looking forward to proceeding with the job; I want to build a hotel and keep building further; We’re a rich and substantial organization; This is an important job for me but it’s not a big job; Even though as soon as this horrendous idea of 11 different colors, styles, looks of windmills is terminated at one mile away… When I first got involved they were to be 10m away then 3m away then 1m away… Now they’re not even off of the coast because this is the equivalent of a 70 story building and there’s 11 of them; Anyone in my position who had made an investment in the beauty of the site only to have this atrocious plan announced after I had spent my money… Wind is not a good form of energy; It doesn’t work without a subsidy; You need to be careful because if UK ever pulls those subsidies, you’ve got major problems on your hands

45:30 Q: The person you say said that denies he ever said that; Why?

A: He’s denying other things; Who knows; They’re even saying I’m in favor of wind farms which I’m not; Expand wave and hydro technology or you’re going to destroy your coastline with wind energy; At a dinner in NY we had together, we talked for hours and we talked about windmills; Who would believe we didn’t talk about windmills? When I originally bought the site if I had known there was going to be turbines built I would have built in Ireland

Q: This committee can’t resolve a matter of dispute over whose word is worth more; You said you had the option to pass on the land here and that you would have if you had known about the turbines; Data shows you had interest in it as of January 2006 but by February 2006 we see you complaining about it to other heads of state; That’s when you start threatening to back out; Had you not already bought the land?
A: I was given assurances prior to buying the land; That’s why I bought it; I didn’t think the wind farm would happen by the time I bought the land; I felt confident the wind farm wouldn’t be built based on word I’ve received from people in the government including MoD

Q: But you do this all the time… Could that not happen?

A: Everyone wants me to put hundreds of millions of pounds into Scotland; It’s not right to get me to do something based on their word and then go against their word

50:25 Q: These attacks on DJT are out of order; Your statement says something different than what you’re saying now, is that inaccurate?

A: I thought I was going to buy the land and invest without the wind mills being built; I did more than I said I would do and the course opens on July 10th; We could open it now, we’re ahead of schedule; I invested tremendous amounts of money out here and the windmills didn’t come to fruition until after I had already invested; It’s a rat project and it’s a terrible way to treat someone investing tens of millions of pounds in Scotland

Q: So your written statement is false or your given statement today is false?
A: I think they mesh

Q: I followed both projects and assisted in consulting on both; Wind project has been on the ground since 2002; You spent money on the property in 2006 and from 2006 to 2009, the project received European backing and became a serious project; You knew the projects were evolving and you could have backed out but didn’t?

A: No, I didn’t know about it; Neither did Royal Aberdeen… They didn’t know it was being built until it was already being built

55:55 Q: Renewable target percentages?

A: Your CO2 targets are ridiculous; China is destroying the atmosphere and what goes into the air but you’re less than 1%, if that, and you’re buying your turbines from China while you destroy the financial well being of Scotland in order to meet phony and totally random CO2 targets; China loves making turbines because they make a lot of money on them from you guys; They’re destroying the atmosphere so much that there’s nothing you can do to bring it back by your so-called wind initiative; Wind is fine if it’s in the right location; For you to set targets while other countries dessimate the atmosphere, it’s foolys

Q: Like the U.S.?

A: Yes, perhaps the U.S. as well; You’re 20 years behind the times; Other countries are giving up industrial turbines; You have wind farms being abandoned all over the world and as soon as government subsidies end, they’re going out of business because they’re not sustainable; Very bad

1:01:00 Q: Wind is not an alternative, it’s an additional source of energy and that’s why it requires backup; When turbines aren’t working which is 70% of the time, energy comes from natural gas, coal, oil; We’re trying to reinvest in local renewable projects; Most effort/funding should go into higher levels of hierarchy where they can be more effective; We’re being left behind by other countries that are doing thorium reactions; Raw material is readily available and in fact, abundant; It requires an external source so that the reaction can be shut down immediately; Only small reactors can be built; Are our targets for energy development? Job creation?

A: It’s jobs in China because they’re the only ones that build the windmills

1:07:00 Q: You say we’re 20 years behind other countries? Targets here say no

A: That’s because of subsidies; You have to be very careful because wind farms are being closed up due to the wind energy sector’s dependency on subsidies; Other countries don’t even like to talk about wind because they think it’s ridiculous; Hydro is fabulous energy; It’s tremendous; I think your country should study hydro instead; Other countries are almost 100% hydro… Efficient and self-sufficient; It’s a great form of energy; You don’t need a mix… You need more hydro

Q: Polls say people are okay with it; What say you?

A: Depends on how the poll is worded; Nobody knows more about polls than me; I have 93% approval for my project when I was being fought on it; I can be very good at polls; A lot of polls don’t even say wind, they say renewable energy… That’s a nice word, but a straight up poll of folks who have experienced the damage of having the turbines in their communities you would have a vast majority rejecting them; Scotland should reject them simply because you can’t afford it

1:12:45 Q: We don’t do government by polls, Mr. Trump; Your opinion is out of touch with the polls publicly, alright? Is it a case of your mind being made up and you not trying to hear the facts?

A: Excuse me; You’re making a terrible mistake; This is because the public wasn’t given the full facts; If you were smart, you’d stop this right now because what’s going to happen to Scotland; This is the same thinking that gave you the idea to let someone out of prison prematurely; It’s true

Q: Do not all forms of energy reform government subsidy?

A: You’ll have to look into that yourself; Turbines don’t work without massive government subsidy and higher taxes; Without the subsidies, they don’t work; Ending the subsidies will result in wind farms all over Scotland and everywhere being abandoned; It’s not a pretty picture

1:17:30 Q: Can we go back to the effect on communities since that’s the point of the hearing?

A: Nope, they don’t need them in as great of number and amount; Expendables like coal and other things were mentioned… If you build a windmill and it lasts 1k years without being spent on, that’s one thing; That’s not the case, these things are being destroyed by wind, rain, salt water; The footings on the turbines in the ocean aren’t holding up; They need to be rebuilt every 4-5 or 10 years; They’re machines, they don’t last; You’re saying you want to build 9k or more turbines around the country but who is going to build new ones when everyone here is gone? Who is going to pay for it the rebuild then?

1:45:30 Trump: Climate change is not man made and it used to be called global cooling; You’re spending billions unnecessarily and it will affect the future of Scotland; I don’t use the word renewables because I think some are good; Turbines are creating more jobs in other countries than they are here; Our flag poles didn’t get approved because of an unacceptable impact of the visual amenity of the area; The poles are 1/10th of the size of these massive and ugly wind turbines; I can’t proceed with this plan to invest in building a $750m hotel project if continuing to build turbines is on the table as an option for a project; Thank you; Trump off mic

CLIP: 120425_PH_890_A