In short
Podcast Summary: Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar (Episode Date: 2/23/26)
Episode Overview In this episode, hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti delve into two significant topics: the surge of cartel violence in Mexico following the death of a prominent cartel leader and the backlash against data centers from big tech companies amidst public concern.
Key Topics Discussed
- Cartel Violence in Mexico
- Event Trigger: The killing of Nemesio Oseguera, alias "El Mencho," the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) by the Mexican army.
- Immediate Fallout:
- Widespread violence ensued, with over 250 roadblocks reported across various Mexican states.
- Major cities, including Guadalajara, faced severe disruptions, with schools closing and civilians sheltering in place.
- At least 14 fatalities were reported, including National Guard troops.
Insights from Jose Luis Granados Ceja
- Significance of El Mencho's Death:
- El Mencho was a major criminal figure and his absence created a power vacuum likely to incite competition and violence among various factions.
- CJNG was noted for its rapid expansion and unique operational model, akin to a franchise, which allowed them to grow quickly and adapt.
- Government Strategy:
- The decision to target El Mencho involved careful national security assessments, taking into account intelligence received from the U.S.
- The Mexican government aimed to assert its capability to deal with organized crime without external military intervention, particularly from the U.S.
- Public Sentiment:
- The violence and subsequent government action were a double-edged sword; while there was support for taking down a major cartel leader, the ensuing chaos raised fears of further instability.
- Big Tech and Data Center Backlash
- Grassroots Activism:
- The episode featured an interview with Charlie Craddiville, a grassroots organizer who successfully campaigned against a proposed data center in New Jersey.
- Craddiville outlined the coalition-building efforts that brought together local residents, students, and environmentalists to oppose the project, emphasizing the negative impacts on community and the environment.
Arguments Against Data Centers
- Environmental Concerns:
- Potential harms to local ecosystems due to noise, pollution, and resource consumption.
- Socioeconomic Impact:
- Data centers are often marketed as job creators, but they provide few permanent jobs and may replace human labor with automation.
- The community expressed frustration over the prioritization of corporate profits over local needs.
- Public Reaction:
- The community pushback reflects a broader sentiment against large tech developments and their implications for local economies and social structures.
Conclusion and Key Insights
- Interconnectedness of Issues:
- Both discussions highlighted the consequences of powerful entities (cartels and tech corporations) acting without sufficient oversight or regard for local communities.
- Call to Action:
- The episode emphasizes the need for community engagement and activism in holding both corporate and governmental bodies accountable.
Additional Links
- [Jeffrey Sachs](https://www.jeffsachs.org)
- [Jose Luis Granados Ceja on X](https://x.com/GranadosCeja)
- [Charlie Kratovil on X](https://x.com/Charlie4Change)
Membership and Merch
- For ad-free content and early access, listeners are encouraged to visit [Breaking Points Premium](http://www.breakingpoints.com).
- Merchandise can be found at the [Breaking Points Merch Store](https://shop.breakingpoints.com).
This episode of Breaking Points provides a critical examination of current events in Mexico related to cartel violence and the growing resistance against data center projects, illustrating the impact of grassroots activism in shaping community responses to larger systemic issues.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnrest in Mexico Following Cartel Leader's Death
2:05 to 3:56
Discussion on the violence in Mexico after the death of a cartel leader.
“We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com.”
Significance of Organized Crime Dynamics
3:56 to 8:01
Analysis of the organized crime structure and the impact of El Mencho's death.
“from his associates in these organized crime groups.”
Mexican Government's Strategic Decisions
8:01 to 11:14
Insights into the decision-making process of the Mexican government regarding cartel actions.
“And so it seems that that's the reason they took the decision.”
Nationalism and U.S. Cooperation
11:14 to 14:01
Exploration of the nationalist sentiment in Mexico and reluctance to acknowledge U.S. collaboration.
“You know, that created a lot of unrest as well.”
U.S.-Mexico Relations and Security Strategies
14:01 to 17:33
Explore the dynamics of U.S.-Mexico relations and security strategies in combating cartel violence.
“That's why it's such a hard line to not permit unilateral military action by the United States or even the presence of U.S.”
Cuban Oil Embargo and Diplomatic Negotiations
17:34 to 19:42
Understand the implications of the Supreme Court ruling on Trump's tariffs and its effects on Mexico's government.
“One more question I have for you on a somewhat separate note, and I asked the same question of Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who we had on a bit earlier.”
Analysis of Potential Humanitarian Crises
19:43 to 20:22
Learn about the potential humanitarian and refugee crises due to the oil situation in Cuba.
“Because if they get no oil, we're talking about basically the collapse of society, right?”
Grassroots Victory Against Data Centers
23:39 to 28:03
Discover Charlie's efforts and strategies that led to halting a proposed data center in New Jersey.
“So let's go ahead and play a little bit of this video and we can we can take a look at this is some of the celebration after your successful campaign to fight against this data center.”
Grassroots Push Against Data Centers
28:03 to 30:07
Discuss the rising local opposition to data centers and its implications.
“Let's put E4 up on the screen here because your movement is part of a rising push, rising local grassroots push against these data centers.”
Community Concerns Over AI and Developers
30:08 to 32:50
Explore the community's frustrations regarding AI development and misinformation.
“And that's what we were seeing here with this redevelopment.”
Show all 12 chapters
Sam Altman's Controversial Comparisons
32:51 to 35:15
Analyze Sam Altman's comments on the energy needs of AI versus humans.
“And to that point, I wanted to get your reaction to some recent comments from Sam Altman, because I think there's also something there's a deeply anti-human ideology that is at the heart of this.”
Defending Communities Against Technology
35:16 to 36:51
Reinforce the importance of community opposition to unwanted developments.
“If we find a robot to be more efficient than you, then we feel perfectly entitled to privilege that robot.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Krystal Ball:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
0:04Jose Luis:This is Ryder Strong and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs.
0:15Charlie Kratovil:No, I am not your guru.
0:19Jose Luis:Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:57Jose Luis:Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:27Jose Luis:From Exactly Right and Adonde Media, this is Two-Faced, John of God. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:39Saagar Enjeti:Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
1:41Jeffrey Sachs:Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
1:48Saagar Enjeti:This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
1:54Jeffrey Sachs:So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
2:05Saagar Enjeti:We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com.
2:13Jeffrey Sachs:All right, guys, we've been following some significant unrest in Mexico after the killing of a top cartel leader. We can put this article up on the screen from the Associated Press. They say here that Mexican army kills leader of powerful Jalisco new generation cartel during operation to capture him. The Mexican army killed the leader of that cartel. El Mencho, he's known as, on Sunday, decapitating what had become Mexico's most powerful drug cartel and thrusting swaths of the nation into chaos. Cars burned out by cartel members blocked roads at more than 250 points in 20 Mexican states, authorities said, and left smoke billowing into the air.
2:51Jeffrey Sachs:Jalisco's capital, Guadalajara, was turned into a ghost town Sunday night as civilians hunkered down. School was canceled Monday in several states, and authorities in a variety of states reported at least 14 dead, including seven National Guard troops. Joining us to discuss these developments is the Latin America desk head of DropSite News, Jose Luis Granados Ceja. Great to see you, Jose.
3:13Krystal Ball:Good to see you, man. Great to see you again. Hi.
3:15Jeffrey Sachs:So we can put some of these images up on the screen of, you know, cars burning. You can see fires all over the place. And, guys, you can just let this run as Jose brings us up to speed. You know, just give us a sense of what the mood is there in Mexico and how significant of a development this is.
3:34Krystal Ball:You know, in terms of how significant this is, this is probably the biggest fish they could possibly catch. Nemesio Oseguera, or El Mencho, as he's more commonly known, was the major player when it came to organized crime here. It can't be overstated how significant, how big of an impact against organized crime groups this, well, capture and then his subsequent death really is for Mexico. And that's why we saw sort of this response in the streets from his associates in these organized crime groups. Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, C-J-N-G, or Las Cuatro Letras, the four letters, they have various names.
4:08Krystal Ball:They are the largest organized crime group here, the most powerful, the most well-connected. It's said that they were rivaling transnational corporations in terms of their reach and their international business connections. What was interesting about them is that they sort of were, in a way, a kind of a new manifestation of organized crime groups. I think a lot of times people think of the cartels, you know, Sinaloa, El Chapo, right, Felix Arellano, all of these different groups from, you know, the series Netflix that covered, you know, the Mexican organized crime situation. This one was a little bit different in that they were able to fill a vacuum incredibly quickly, grow incredibly quickly.
4:48Krystal Ball:And that's because they operated sort of learning the lessons of the previous cartel groups of not necessarily kind of wanting to virtually vertically integrate everything. They were kind of almost like a franchise model where, you know, people kind of pay tribute to the central organization without necessarily being tied to it. And that's generally true of organized crime groups. They're far less organized than I think people think. But this is, of course, huge. I mean, he was the top of this organized crime group. They had presence quite literally in every corner of this country, obviously mostly concentrated in the states where they were most active, like Jalisco.
5:21Krystal Ball:And that's where we saw the most violence. And I think to explain that, obviously, we all saw these scenes of, you know, billowing cars and roads being blocked. And of course, you know, those are disturbing to see, but they shouldn't be overstated. You know, the article that you read to introduce this piece talked about the chaos and things like that. But that's precisely what these groups wanted to do. So they had their leader captured. And so as an act of protest, you can think of, they go and unleash these kinds of acts of violence, these acts of intimidation, in a sense to send a message to say they're unhappy with what just happened, to deliver a message to the federal government, the Mexican government, which was responsible for this operation, but also to show who's the strong actor.
6:00Krystal Ball:Because now there's going to be, as always happens when you take out the top, when you decapitate these organizations, a bit of a competition in terms of who's going to now try to compete to become the new head of the organization. And what we saw yesterday, in a sense, is that. Is people trying to flex their own muscle to show, look how many men I can mobilize. Look how much unrest I can cause. I'm the one who should really rise up to be the next leader of this organization.
6:24Saagar Enjeti:That's very interesting. I didn't realize that. But, Jose, as I understand it as well, part of the reason that they do this is to inflict pain on the Mexican government. Not only is it bad publicity, but, you know, there's a significant number of U.S. tourists who are in the region who are, you know, some of them were sheltering in place in their hotels. And obviously, you know, these things go viral, impact their tourism industry. How does the Mexican government come to the conclusion to carry out something like this? Because we've seen in the past, you know, with the Chapitos, that famous raid, and there was a massive gunfight and people were, you know, there were bullets spraying in the streets and all of that.
7:00Saagar Enjeti:So they know this is going to happen. How do they come to the conclusion ultimately to conduct a raid like this?
7:06Krystal Ball:So here in Mexico, we have a national security cabinet, and that is essentially the body that's tasked with making these difficult decisions. And part of the kind of calculation is that, in fact, under the previous government, Claudia Sheinbaum's predecessor, López Obrador, there was that famous case where one of El Chapo's sons was ultimately let go because they made the evaluation that the kind of violence that this was going to unleash was basically not worth it. You know, there was a calculation like, should we proceed with his detention and allow them to unleash the kind of violence that we expect them to?
7:39Krystal Ball:Or should we kind of walk away and find a better moment for this? I think what's important about this one is that there's a couple of things. One, there was important intelligence that was shared from the United States, apparently. Both the U.S. government and the Mexican government have now said as much that there was key intelligence here. It sounds like they knew where he was, that this was a good chance to grab him, where he wasn't being heavily protected, where they were less able to kind of mobilize. And so it seems that that's the reason they took the decision. This was a good moment. They had good intelligence.
8:06Krystal Ball:They could act on it. But the other one was also kind of understanding that they needed to strike against these organized crime groups. They needed to, I think, in a lot of ways, send a message not just to the organized crimes groups themselves to say that we're serious about going after you, that this is a different kind of administration in terms of a much stronger, heavier hand when it comes to these groups, but also a message to Donald Trump, to the White House to say, you know, that right now the debate that seems to be happening in the United States is whether there should be unilateral military action.
8:37Krystal Ball:by the United States and Mexico. Mexico obviously has said, no, that's a red line for this government. They would view it as a violation of sovereignty. But you have to continually make that case because Donald Trump has said on many occasions, he wants to send troops into Mexico. He wants to use drone strikes. And Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said, you can share intelligence, but when it comes to military action, we conduct it because this is our territory. And I think this is in a lot of ways, really good for the Mexican government in that sense to say, look, share this information.
9:03Krystal Ball:We can act on it and we can take care of it. And obviously now the task is to deal with the fallout, to deal with these incidents, although they've largely been under control. As of yesterday, 90 percent of all the roadblocks had been stopped, had been kind of, you know, de-established. But, you know, this morning, Gladys Scheinbaum's in her morning press conference now, and she's giving the message as we speak, essentially giving the same thing, that things are now fully under control. Interesting.
9:28Jeffrey Sachs:Is there a fear that, you know, you're sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't? If you don't strike this cartel leader and take him out, then the U.S. government says, see, they're not dealing with the cartel. So we have to go in and take unilateral action. But then when you do take out the cartel leader, it leads not just to these flare ups, but the expectation is there probably will be some sort of turf war and potential increased violence. And then the U.S. government can look at that. Trump can look at that and say, see, look at all this escalating violence they need us. We have to go in.
9:58Krystal Ball:Yeah, and it's quite likely that there'll be some actors who will make that kind of case and say, well, look, look at everything that's happening. You clearly don't have under control. And that's actually why I think we saw online yesterday just fake images, artificial intelligence. There was this image of a plane on fire that was not real whatsoever. You know, somebody apparently triggered an alarm inside of the airport in Guadalajara, and that made some people panic. And then somebody took that image and said, look, the commandos from the organized crime groups have taken over the airport because they want to sow this chaos.
10:28Krystal Ball:They want to sow this kind of sense of a lack of control in order to, I think, in one regard, try to support this argument that it's out of control and the Mexican government can't handle it. But also to try to, like I said at the beginning, to send this message that they are more powerful than perhaps people account for, right? And, you know, I think one of the reasons they also acted yesterday is that there's very small windows of opportunity. These are wily actors. I mean, how many times did El Chapo escape from custody, right? It's only because he's been extradited and it's more difficult for him to be able to kind of engage in the bribery that it takes to be able to get free that he's still in custody today.
11:05Krystal Ball:And so I think that window, they saw it as a good one to act. And yes, cognizant of the consequences in terms of what will happen next. The case of Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación is curious, too, because, you know, for example, with the, you know, the ex, I don't know what to call it because he wasn't extradited, the kidnapping of El Mayo. You know, that created a lot of unrest as well. But I think that's because there was already kind of a dispute internally between rival factions inside of that cartel where you had the chapitos and the maillitos. And so that's part of why we saw so much more violence.
11:41Krystal Ball:And this one, it doesn't look like there's a natural successor. A lot of his closest associates and Menchel's closest associates are either dead or in jail. And so, you know, his son is already detained. His daughters are not that active. So it's not clear who will take over. There's likely going to be a lot of internal power disputes and they're going to do it through violence. And so there it's important to see in terms of what's the actual capacity of the Mexican National Guard, the Mexican armed forces to ensure security, particularly in these kinds of hotspots where they are most active. That really is the major challenge today.
12:15Saagar Enjeti:Jose, how does the Mexican government deal with the it's kind of a maybe too broad of a question, but with U.S. security? So, like, for example, you've had the U.S. intelligence sharing that happened that led to this threat. But we also saw earlier there was an incident maybe you can tell us about where a drug dealer, international fugitive, was seized by the United States and Kash Patel took credit for it. But the Mexicans were like, hey, man, you weren't supposed to talk about that. Like, we don't like to acknowledge how much we share back and forth. How does the Mexican government handle that domestically?
12:50Saagar Enjeti:Like, why are they so reticent to admit U.S. cooperation to the Mexican public? Is there a political dynamic I'm missing? How does that work? Yeah.
12:59Krystal Ball:So the case you're referring to is this Canadian, apparently an Olympic athlete who was accused of being, you know, well positioned, an important player in organized crime. And yeah, it's still actually not clear exactly whether or not he turned himself in, whether it was an operation, was it done by Mexican forces? Did the FBI participate directly? That would be extraordinary and unusual. I have trouble believing Kash Patel sometimes because we know he has a penchant for wanting to tell his own story in his own way that kind of inflates his role in all of this. So I would be hesitant to take his totally as believable.
13:36Krystal Ball:But you're right. There is a certain kind of reluctance on the Mexican government to admit this. And a lot of that is because of the nationalist sentiment. Morena, her political party, is a very Mexican nationalist movement. It's kind of one of the pillars of their political ideology. And it is seen as, you know, almost as offensive that we would need the support of the United States for all of this. Right. That's why it's such a hard line to not permit unilateral military action by the United States or even the presence of U.S. troops in actual operations. They are U.S. troops here for trainings.
14:11Krystal Ball:One was recently approved by the Mexican Senate, for example. So there's a dislike for it amongst the population. And I think because people are worried that it would be a slippery slope, right? How do U.S. entanglements abroad always begin? It always starts with that, with training, with advice. Oh, well, we should have used some information. but you're right to point out that there's extraordinary amount of information sharing. In fact, more than we probably know. Gladys Scheinbaum and Donald Trump apparently had more than a dozen phone calls, but we only really know the details of a handful of them.
14:41Krystal Ball:So they're obviously high level negotiations and that's how the Mexican government likes to do things. I think particularly with the administration we have in the United States now where, you know, they are boastful and they like to, you know, stretch the truth to be polite about it, right? And so she's like, I often she says, I often don't like to respond to whatever his public statements he makes. We have our conversations. They happen at the table. They happen behind closed doors. That's what's actually important in the bilateral relationship. Got it.
15:06Jeffrey Sachs:And how do most Mexicans feel about how Scheinbaum is navigating the relationship with the U.S.?
15:11Krystal Ball:Well, I think they would they would be feel encouraged. I think they feel very positive about it. She has extraordinarily high approval ratings. They oscillate between 70 and 80 percent. I mean, the kinds of approval ratings people are unheard of in most parts of the world. And part of it, you know, one of the places where she does receive criticism, where people feel like more needs to be done, is precisely around security. Under the previous administration of López Obrador, there was a pretty major shift in the security strategy where they went from an all-out war. You know, they stopped talking about war.
Read the full transcript
15:42Krystal Ball:They stopped talking about, you know, the war against the cartels and instead started focusing more on investigation, prevention, above all, this philosophy of investing in communities and in young people to try to dissuade them from organized crime groups. And I think in a lot of ways it was effective. But we're also dealing with really violent, heavily armed and extremely well-funded organizations where social investment is not going to be enough. Right. And I do think that with Claudia Scheinbaum, and she probably wouldn't say as much so as to not seem as if she's disagreeing with her predecessor because of the important place he occupies and the kind of political imaginary in this country.
16:21Krystal Ball:But I do think has taken a far more aggressive approach of wanting to go after these major figures. I think part of it is naturally due to the pressure of the United States to kind of, you know, have more things to show off in terms of successes. But I do think that a lot of people are feeling reassured, you know, feeling like actions are being done and that steps are being taken to attend to the kind of quality of life things. You know, organized crime groups have been active here in this country for decades. Right. But it's sort of their their interventions, their their their way that they actually affect the day to day of people that really kind of undermines their confidence in the ability of the state to handle this.
17:03Krystal Ball:So the kidnappings, the extortion, all of that actually under her security chief, Omar Garcia Harfuch, who incidentally was once a target of the very man who was killed yesterday, has been far more on investigation and actually going after the money that provides them the ability to engage in all of this. And we're seeing a very slight increase, I think, in the approval ratings when it comes to security here in Mexico because of that small shift but important shift in her security strategy. So interesting.
17:34Jeffrey Sachs:One more question I have for you on a somewhat separate note, and I asked the same question of Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who we had on a bit earlier. And this is with regard to Cuba. I'm sure you saw a Supreme Court struck down Trump's ability to levy tariffs unilaterally using the IEPA authority. He had used this to threaten Mexico and to threaten Scheinbaum to try to enforce this illegal oil embargo with Cuba. Do you think that that decision changes the calculus at all for the Scheinbaum government?
18:01Krystal Ball:Well, it looks like Trump is going to go forward with it no matter what. And, you know, Mexico has been threatened with tariffs on half a dozen occasions and has been able to talk their way out of it almost every single time. Even this most recent one where he announced these kind of across the board tariffs on every country. Once again, countries, Canada, Mexico, and that's part of the USMCA are exempt from it. And so the thing about this one in particular, the one about Cuba, is that my reading of it, it was primarily addressed to Mexico. Mexico, stop sending your oil to Cuba or we're going to impose this tariff on you.
18:36Krystal Ball:And I think the fact that we saw the government respond and suspended shipments tells us that in those closed doors negotiations, there was definitely a very clear threat to say that this one's serious. You're not going to be able to talk your way out of this one, that we want to choke off the supply of oil to Cuba. And so you better play ball. And that's why we've seen them suspended. Because I think, you know, there's a lot of voices out there who are saying, well, why don't they just break the blockade? Right. Why don't they just kind of challenge? Call us bluff. You know, the United States is having some tricky economic numbers coming published out now, not less job creation, all of that.
19:11Krystal Ball:Can they really afford to put a tariff on its number one trading partner? And I think they would. And I think they've transmitted that message to the Mexican government that this is serious. And so the only way out of this for the Mexican government is through negotiation, some kind of diplomatic breakthrough to convince them that if they don't allow Mexico or any other country to provide oil, then they're going to produce a massive humanitarian crisis, which itself is going to produce a huge refugee crisis, which is going to land on your doorstep, United States. So I think that's the kind of angle that they've been pushing for.
19:40Krystal Ball:And it seems to be working. There seems to be rumors of at least setting some oil come in so that, you know, that the situation doesn't become such a big problem that we see, you know, millions of Cubans trying to leave the island. Because if they get no oil, we're talking about basically the collapse of society, right? You know, nothing works without energy. There's no food. There's no hospitals. There's no schools. I mean, it'll be a nightmare scenario for the Cuban people, which would absolutely produce a refugee crisis in the region and for the United States. And I don't think Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller want to be tagged with that to say you're the reason there's a new migrant crisis here in the United States.
20:18Krystal Ball:Good point.
20:19Jeffrey Sachs:We will see. Jose, thank you so much. Great to have your analysis. us.
20:23Krystal Ball:Thank you very much for inviting me. We'll see you next time.
20:52Jose Luis:to everybody. There were years, right, where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened.
21:05Krystal Ball:Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend?
21:09Jose Luis:They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of s*** to come around here and my wife. Boom. Boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers, we're also husband and wife.
21:48Jose Luis:It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
22:20Jose Luis:probably won't believe it either.
22:22Jeffrey Sachs:Okay, I don't think that's true.
22:23Jose Luis:I'm telling you. I was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman? And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids? The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
22:58Jeffrey Sachs:All right, guys, you know we have been tracking closely here some of the local pushback against data centers being located in communities across the country, and we are very fortunate to be joined this morning by a grassroots activist who has had great success fighting and stopping a data center in New Jersey. So Charlie Craddiville is a central Jersey organizer with Food & Water Watch. He's the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, a community news outlet that covers the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey. And he just led the successful and viral, I might add, campaign to kill AMZAC Capital Management's plan to build a new 27 ,000 square foot data center near homes and businesses last week.
23:35Jeffrey Sachs:Charlie, welcome. It's a pleasure to have you. Good to see you, Charlie.
23:37Charlie Kratovil:My pleasure. A big fan of you guys. Thanks, man.
23:40Jeffrey Sachs:Yeah, of course. So let's go ahead and play a little bit of this video and we can we can take a look at this is some of the celebration after your successful campaign to fight against this data center. So celebrations in the street, you know, screaming they we won, they canceled the data center. And then you also had quite a viral post as well that we can put up here. I mean, just amazingly viral. I'm sure you had no idea the way this would take off when you posted it. and can see, you know, your picture here. You say we won, no data center, and they have to build a park. So take us behind the scenes here.
24:18Jeffrey Sachs:What did this organizing effort look like? And what was the type of coalition that you all were able to build on the ground?
24:25Charlie Kratovil:Yeah, there's something really special and unique about this campaign. You know, being a local journalist, I attend all the meetings. And so I just happened to be at the New Brunswick Planning Board meeting the night that they revealed that this redevelopment plan included a data center that would be right near homes and businesses. You know, we didn't think of New Brunswick as a place where we might be having these types of proposals, but sure enough, this is the first time it's happened. And we really only had nine days before the city council was supposed to approve it and finalize the redevelopment plan.
25:01Charlie Kratovil:And once it's in there, I know from experience how hard it can be to fight the site plans because they'll just say it's a permitted use in the redevelopment plan. And it was a really sloppy redevelopment plan with no limits or controls on how big it is or how many there could be. So, yeah, they said a single 27 ,000 square foot data center verbally at this one meeting, but there would be nothing stopping that private equity firm from coming back with a much larger or more devastating proposal. And so, yeah, I, you know, work at Food and Water Watch, where we have called for a nationwide moratorium on large scale AI data centers, along with 250 other groups.
25:45Charlie Kratovil:And so I knew the right people to contact and I knew the right information to share. And in those nine days, we were able to build a coalition with students at Rutgers University, environmental groups around the state and the local people who were going to be most affected. So, you know, one of those pictures, I'm there knocking on doors in the Lincoln Gardens neighborhood to warn people that this proposal is coming up and you need to call your council president and show up at this meeting. And, you know, I was expecting a big response, but certainly it exceeded my wildest expectations.
26:19Saagar Enjeti:Yeah, Charlie, I don't you are enemy number one to a lot of people in the tech industry. Many of them. I know some of these people. They view you and your ilk, as they would call it, as the vanguard of the degrowth movement, as people who refuse to accept this forward progress and productivity in their lives. Why were you even interested in blocking this data center in the first place?
26:45Charlie Kratovil:Well, I know how devastating they can be from some of my colleagues around the nation that have helped fight and in some cases have not been able to stop them. So they can be devastating to ecosystems. The noise and pollution can be harmful to humans. And it's the type of development that it's the opposite of job creation, right? Normally, we are in this sort of like environmentalist versus jobs dynamic. But these facilities have, you know, very few permanent jobs. And in fact, the artificial intelligence industry is famous for replacing human workers with computer technology and putting people out of work.
27:27Charlie Kratovil:So those arguments don't carry water. I have gotten a little taste of how strong the opposition is. And I knew that it was something that we needed to tap into here in New Brunswick because at the end of the day, I wanted our city council to remember this moment next time a data center is proposed. And they'll just say no because they understand that the people don't want it, at least not here in our city. And, yeah, I think, you know, Food and Water Watch is right to support a moratorium on this stuff because otherwise we're going to be making decisions that we're going to be locked into and we're going to come to regret.
28:02Charlie Kratovil:Yeah.
28:03Jeffrey Sachs:Let's put E4 up on the screen here because your movement is part of a rising push, rising local grassroots push against these data centers. This was a heat map report from last month, which said amid rising local pushback, U.S. data center cancellation surged in 2025. A heat map pro review, a public record shows 25 data centers scrubbed last year after local pushback. That was four times as many as 2024. You know, I live in a rural community in Virginia. Virginia has really been the, you know, the epicenter of these data center locations. And I've seen the way that the awareness and the activism around these data centers has shifted just in the past couple of years here as well.
28:47Jeffrey Sachs:Why do you think that your success, you know, really sort of tapped into a zeitgeist? Why it was so important, why people found it so important? What do you think the issues are that you're touching on that are resonating really in a cross-partisan and cross-ideological way as well?
29:06Charlie Kratovil:Yeah, I mean, in New Brunswick, we have a lot of development and redevelopment going on. So I know there's a lot of frustration over it, but it's often, you know, some people love it and some people don't love it. In this case, this is a piece of land that had been completely vacant for years. The developer kicked out small businesses to, you know, supposedly had big plans and never delivered on them. So I knew the local people were not going to support a plan that was going to, you know, basically change what was supposed to be a park to a big data center. I also knew that more broadly, people are very frustrated with artificial intelligence and the impact it's having.
29:48Charlie Kratovil:how we're seeing so much misinformation and slop in our feeds that we didn't see just a few years ago, and how it's ultimately a big moneymaker for the extremely wealthy, and virtually nothing is trickling down to regular folks. So different people have different reasons for opposing it, but it is definitely something that is widely felt, And we're all sort of on the same side, whether, you know, we don't like it because of the impact it's having on, you know, our social media feeds or the impact it's having on our economy or the impact it's having on our environment or just the fact that, you know, we don't want developers to be able to make the maximum profit without giving anything back to the community.
30:34Charlie Kratovil:And that's what we were seeing here with this redevelopment.
30:37Saagar Enjeti:Yeah, I think it's fascinating. So the response I've seen to you, Charlie, I'll read one from a VC who I know, Gary Tan. He says a fully built data center complex generates thirty one million dollars a year in state taxes, sixty one million in local. It creates four hundred and thirty direct jobs as facility, plus many more indirect construction phase jobs. So clearly you and your community, you're not buying that. Parse that argument. Oh, you could have built a bigger park, Charlie, if you would let it be there. And then the new park would eventually materialize. So you're not buying it. Tell us why.
31:10Charlie Kratovil:Yeah, I mean, those numbers are kind of made up, right? The specifics on this project were few and far between. The developer never showed up in New Brunswick to explain what they wanted to do or why. This was all just in the early phase of a redevelopment plan, secondhand. And frankly, there were lies involved, right? We were misled at the initial city council meeting where they voted on this. And they were told this is just minor tweaks that they're making to the commercial component of the project, which was supposed to be offices and retail originally. So, yeah, I have no faith or trust in, you know, developers and officials who are going to mislead us.
31:53Charlie Kratovil:And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, they're not making the case. They're not making a good case for it. You know, this company basically came in and said, oh yeah, that developer messed up, but we're going to take over their project. We're the financial backers. And don't worry, he's not involved anymore, so you could trust us. But they're in Palm Beach. They never came to New Brunswick and explained what they wanted to do or why. And, you know, ultimately, this seemed like a half-baked plan all along, but it was so important that we stopped the redevelopment plan because if it got through, it would have allowed them to have as many data centers as they wanted.
32:28Jeffrey Sachs:Yeah, and to your point, You know, I was watching some of the town hall footage from Missouri community where they were pushing back on, you know, efforts to put a data center in their town. And the concerns really were everything from the, you know, I don't know that I want to call it mundane, but, you know, concerns about noise pollution. What's the traffic going to mean? What's it going to mean for the character of our town? To the more existential. And to that point, I wanted to get your reaction to some recent comments from Sam Altman, because I think there's also something there's a deeply anti-human ideology that is at the heart of this.
33:03Jeffrey Sachs:So let's go ahead and take a listen to Sam Altman comparing the energy needs of AI to the energy needs of human beings.
33:11Jose Luis:One of the things that is always unfair in this comparison is people talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model relative to how much it costs a human to do one inference query. But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart. And not only that, it took like the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever to produce you. And then you took whatever you took. So the fair comparison is if you ask ChatGPT a question, how much energy does it take once its model is trained to answer that question versus a human?
33:52Jose Luis:And probably AI has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis measured that way.
33:58Jeffrey Sachs:So what do you make of those comments comparing the value and the energy needs of babies up through adult humans versus robots?
34:08Charlie Kratovil:Yeah, it's certainly interesting. I think that, you know, folks who think of it in those terms are, you know, demonstrating the coldness that they have towards society as we know it. And, you know, innovation can and is a great thing, you know, but we have to stay true to what we are, you know, as human beings, as a society that, you know, loves and cares for one another. You know, we can't just throw it all away and change our physical environment to facilitate technology growth over our own sustainability as a species. And of course, you know, at the end of the day, it's about money, right? These folks are going to make a ton of money off this, and they don't want to share the wealth.
35:01Charlie Kratovil:They want to control everything, including information, including money, including water, including our, you know, electricity. And, you know, we can't stand for that. You know, it's a power grab. That's awesome.
35:15Jeffrey Sachs:Yeah, all while promising to eliminate all or most white-collar jobs. I mean, that's the thing that to me just continues to honestly astonish me is they have the nerve to say, how dare you stand against a data center in your community when the quote unquote deal that they're threatening us with is we want to use up all the power. If we find a robot to be more efficient than you, then we feel perfectly entitled to privilege that robot. Right. We want to suck up. We want to, you know, make you spike your electricity bills. We want to suck up the water. We want to suck up the resources, all in service of ultimately eliminating your job.
35:52Jeffrey Sachs:And if you object to any of that, even from the hyper local perspective of I don't want to be part of this year in my community for a whole variety of reasons, then you are, you know, anti-technology. You're a de-growther. You're enemy number one, as Sagar put it.
36:08Charlie Kratovil:Yeah, a lot of interesting comments in response to that tweet. Yeah, all I can say is, you know, I support the humans over the machines. And I think that, you know, we should stick together. And no matter what the development is proposed, whether it's a pipeline or a power plant or a big AI data center, we should defend our communities. If we don't want those things in our communities, we have a right to stand up and say no. And it's on them to make the case for why that's going to be good in the long run. And they are not making that case. Totally agree.
36:40Saagar Enjeti:Charlie, they call you an enemy. I call you hero number one. Thank you very much for joining us, sir. Genuinely inspired by what you guys were able to do. Thank you for joining our show. We appreciate it.
36:53Charlie Kratovil:Thank you. My pleasure. Keep up the good work.
36:55Saagar Enjeti:All right. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We should be back in studio tomorrow as long as all the roads, electricity and all of that cooperates. And of course, we're going to have our great State of the Union live stream. So we'll see you all then.
37:21Jose Luis:Hey, everyone. It's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers, we're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune.
37:59Jose Luis:It was nature and trees and praying. And drugs.
38:03Charlie Kratovil:No, I am not your guru.
38:06Jose Luis:Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who didn't do what John of God wanted them to do, they usually disappeared. John of God was once Brazil's most famous spiritual healer.
38:35Saagar Enjeti:But in this limited series podcast, we uncover the darker truth behind his global empire of faith and fear.
38:44Jose Luis:From Exactly Right and Adonde Media, this is Two-Faced, John of God. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
From the publisher
Krystal and Saagar discuss cartel violence exploding in Mexico after a top leader was killed, big tech loses it after public backlash to data centers.
Jeffrey Sachs: https://www.jeffsachs.org/
Jose Luis: https://x.com/GranadosCeja
Charlie Kratovil: https://x.com/Charlie4Change
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