Rambling Trump claims electric vehicles 'make the environment dirtier'

President Donald Trump made a bizarre claim about electric vehicles in one of his signature speech ad-libs on Tuesday.

Trump spoke in Clive, Iowa, on Tuesday evening in front of a crowd of rural voters. In part of his speech, Trump mentioned rolling back many of the Biden administration's environmental protections and electric vehicle mandates. One of the policies he mentioned that elicited the biggest crowd response was his repeal of Biden's diesel exhaust fluid mandates, which Trump claimed could have cost farmers more than $1 billion in equipment upgrades.

"We're going to do something with tractors," Trump said. "We did it with cars. We took all of that nonsense off the cars. You couldn't start your car. You'd have to go to MIT to get someone to fix your car, with all that crap on it, in order to save a quarter of a glass .. of gas. These people are crazy!"

"I'm gonna do that, I think, for tractors too, because we need to get the tractors back," he continued. "You don't have to be a PhD in order to start your tractor. In order to keep the environment clean. It's a bunch of nonsense. It makes the environment dirtier, actually."

One of Trump's biggest supporters, Elon Musk, is also one of the world's largest electric car manufacturers. Musk has said he will continue funding Republicans in the 2026 primary elections, despite saying last year that he was likely finished with politics.