I feel your pain vs. ‘let Data Reign’: How Trump and his VP are out of step on data centers

By Aaron Blake, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump is doing plenty of things that must be making his party nervous ahead of the midterm elections. But high on that list is his rah-rah advocacy for much-derided AI data centers.

And his and Vice President JD Vance’s very different comments about the subject Monday underscored the GOP’s messaging problems.

While traveling to Michigan, where data centers are expected to figure significantly in races for Senate and other offices, Vance gave a very nuanced answer on the issue.

“I think probably 99% of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utilities and higher electricity for the people on the ground,” Vance said.

He added that data centers “should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out. And if that is happening, I don’t think the data centers are that controversial. It’s when the utility bills get so much higher; that’s when it’s a real problem.”

But that nuance — and sympathy for people who might object to data centers — wasn’t part of the message when Trump talked about the issue on social media just hours earlier.

“The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump posted.

He added: “If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”

So basically, it’s I feel your pain versus “let Data Reign.”

Vance emphasized that people might have legitimate issues with these data centers. But Trump said the only reason to object to them, basically, is because you’re a dummy.

It’s merely the latest in a string of strong Trump endorsements of data centers, which polls show as many as 7 in 10 Americans don’t want in their communities. Very few Americans share Trump’s affinity for them, which has even involved the president marveling at how attractive the massive buildings are.

The other reason Vance’s comments are so discordant with Trump’s is that Trump has basically said the problem Vance raised — data centers increasing energy costs — is a nonissue.

In fact, Trump claimed that problem was extinguished nearly six months ago.

He made that pronouncement at a March 4 event, when he rolled out a plan to get developers to voluntarily promise that data center construction wouldn’t raise people’s energy bills.

“They need some PR help, because people think that if a data center goes in there, electricity prices are going to go up,” Trump said. “And that’s not happening. It’s not going to happen. And for the areas where it did happen, it won’t happen anymore.”

Five months later, on August 4, Trump claimed data centers were “not taking” from the community and even claimed they were a net benefit on energy.

“The excess power that they have, which is substantial, they’re selling that back at a very low cost to the grid,” Trump said on Fox News. “So we’re getting more and more electric — costs us nothing.”

He even claimed on August 21 that “the data centers now are mandated by me that they build their own electricity, so they’re not taking it from the grid.”

“It’s going to lower the electric costs,” he added.

But that’s not true. Trump appeared to be referring to so-called behind-the-meter power plants, which data centers can use to produce their own energy. But there is no federal mandate; even the plan Trump rolled out in March basically amounted to asking tech companies to make a voluntary pledge.

This appears to be the latest example of an issue where Trump gets something in his head and just can’t let it go. But it’s not just that he can’t move on; it’s that he also needs to repeatedly make a hyperbolic and counterfactual case for the thing he likes. He needs to talk about how people who disagree with him must want to be “backwards and poor.”

One could argue that data centers are so vital to the growing competition with China over AI that an affirmative case for them needs to be made. You could even call it courageous to do so, given where the American people are on this issue.

But the fact that Vance — who might run for president in his own right starting in a few months — is speaking in more muted tones would seem to say plenty about the politics of this issue.

The-CNN-Wire
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