The Data Center Will Not Hold

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1:34Jim Newell: Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio.

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1:52Patrick Reis: We're officially less than two months away from the midterms. And that means it's the home stretch.

2:01Jim Newell: The last leg of the midterms here have really snuck up on us.

2:05Patrick Reis: That's Jim Newell, Slate's senior politics writer. He's the man behind The Surge, Slate's Saturday newsletter that breaks down the biggest stories of campaign season. There's a link to sign up in the show notes. Go do it. We'll wait.

2:21Jim Newell: I think we're six weeks until the midterms. It felt like the primaries were just going as of two weeks ago because they were. So it feels a bit like everything's kind of falling into place. All the big money commitments from super PACs that people promise are all actually falling into place. There's advertisements everywhere. It's all happening finally.

2:41Patrick Reis: If you think of the midterms as a kind of bi-yearly autumnal marathon, Jim is Slate's star runner. And Patrick Rice, senior editor, is like his coach.

2:53Jim Newell: You know how there's always that adorable family member holding a sign that says, you can do it, go faster? That's me, just waving that sign at Jim. He's rolling his eyes at me. I will not stop waving it.

3:04Patrick Reis: Because it's the last leg of the midterms race, What Next is launching a weekly series of its own. It's called Super Tuesdays. Every Tuesday, we're assembling a roundtable of experts, reporters, political thinkers, and answering your questions about the big issues dominating the conversation wherever you live.

3:25So there's Jim, there's Patrick, and there's me.

3:30Patrick Reis: I'm Emily Peck, subbing in for Mary today. I co-write the Axios Markets newsletter every day. And as someone who covers money, when it comes to big issues dominating the conversation right now, there is basically one. One issue driving markets and politics and America. It's AI. You cannot escape AI.

3:53Jim Newell: I don't think anyone last summer thought that kind of there'd be this enormous data center backlash over the summer. And then there'd be a related flock camera backlash. And then there'd be some, you know, discussion in Congress and on the campaign trail about whether these fancy new computers are going to kill everyone. Meet data center David Crowley. There's an opportunity for us to really become AI and a data.

4:22Patrick Reis: From coast to coast, politicians from both parties are falling over themselves to get away from the D word data center. I'm Grant Hochschild, and we thought we'd show you what can happen with data centers. First, they're really big. One building can be 40 years old. Why is my electric bill going up?

4:39Jim Newell: Absolutely. I'm happy to help. Data center production and energy use in Texas is skyrocketing to meet AI's needs. For your future.

4:46Patrick Reis: What? Who authorized that?

4:49Jim Newell: Greg Abbott. Abbott took$20 million in campaign...

4:51Patrick Reis: But while Republicans on the ground are avoiding AI, Trump's sending a different signal. The data centers are great, and they make people wealthy, and they make states wealthy, and it's the oil of the next 20, 25 years. It's bigger than the internet and the AI,

5:08Jim Newell: you know, much more so. I covered Congress. So, you know, a year ago or so, members of both parties saying like, oh, this is great. This is going to cure cancer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now it's more dividing lines falling into place where Republicans are maybe a little more positive about it, in part because they're the party in power. So they don't want to say they presided over this monstrous new technology, you know, and Democrats who are kind of just using it as another lever to hammer Republicans with saying that they've abused their power.

5:40Patrick Reis: Today on the show, the midterms and AI. I'm Emily Peck, sitting in for Mary Harris. You're listening to What Next. Stick around.

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7:27Patrick Reis: Entering the conversation is our president, Trump. On Saturday morning this past weekend, he, you know, dropped one of these like extra long truth social posts. This time was about AI. He's calling AI a, quote, hoax from the radical left Democrats. Yet at the same time, he's saying he announced he's going to establish an AI task force and appoint an AI czar. Patrick, do we know anything about either of those things, czar or task force?

7:58Jim Newell: I think we know pretty well what task force means in Washington. And it means let's delay this problem for a good long time. Let's wait until people have thought about it a little less and cooled down. and then let's release a report that makes big news in seven trade publications and doesn't lead to much in the way of action. If they were serious about doing something, this wouldn't be the first step. I think Trump's made it pretty clear that he sees any AI regulation as an attack on himself because it is an attack on the Trump economy, allegedly. In Slate's newsletter, The Surge, on Saturday.

8:37Jim Newell: We have more on this. You should check it out. But I don't see Trump moving meaningfully towards AI regulation so long as he sees it as any sort of threat to GDP growth. And right now it's a tremendous piece of the GDP growth. So I think these are sort of the classic, of course I'm doing something, just don't ask me exactly what I'm going to do kind of moves that presage inaction rather than action. In reading his true social posts, like I had no idea what he was even setting up. I mean, he says, I'm forming the AI force, but it doesn't actually say what it's going to be tasked with doing. It just says what it won't do.

9:20Jim Newell: It says it won't in any way impede AI development, which he uses the greatest thing since sliced bread right now. So I think there's a whole lot more to figure out what he means. Politically, what it is, is you have his advisers breaking through to him saying people are freaking out about AI. You can't just go out there and say it's a hoax or that they're silly for thinking this. You have to put out some acknowledgement of this and that there's some control over it. And he did he did the bare minimum. them.

9:49Patrick Reis: Yeah, it seems like a little bit it is Trump getting a reality check, like you have to at least show some concern, or at least the concern is breaking through on all sides. But I mean, when David Sachs was the AI czar, Jim, what did he do in his czar role? Like, from looking at it from where I was standing, it seemed like his role was just to encourage the development of AI. It wasn't about putting brakes on anything or passing regulations or anything along those lines. It seemed like he was more on the other side of that.

10:26Jim Newell: Yeah, he was kind of AI's representative to the White House. He wasn't there to show Trump where things need to be reined in or not. He was just kind of there to help Trump and the White House make sense of things and also to show the AI industry and the crypto industry, because he was also the czar of that, that they had a friend in the White House. Yeah.

10:44Patrick Reis: Yeah. And now I think this notion that there's going to be a pause in AI or at least pacing the frontiers, Anthropix CEO said last week, David Sachs has already come out and said that any kind of pause wouldn't make America safer and would hand this market to China. So I guess we kind of know where he stands.

11:06Jim Newell: Yeah, he and that's kind of the whole administration's line. You know, Todd Blanche said that from the Justice Department, too. They're not pursuing anything. They're just saying, if you think you're building killer machines, well, you should stop doing that. And, you know, the AI companies, if you take them at their word, they're saying we have a collective action problem here. But so in other words, there's a long way to go before this all reaches a settlement. Right.

11:27Patrick Reis: And yet in the last newsletter, I guess you're calling AI basically a layup. You've never seen a bigger layup issue for populists heading down the stretch of an election season. How is this a layup issue for populists?

11:40Jim Newell: Because if you're you're looking at, especially over the summer, you look at especially governor's races just because governors have power to set, you know, moratoriums or offer tax breaks or not offer tax breaks to tech companies trying to do data centers. It just became so rapidly unpopular, whether correctly or not. It just became rapidly unpopular between both Democrats and Republicans. So, you know, there's not really there's not a great constituency out there, given how angry people are, given how much low trust there is in society right now towards these these big tech companies. There's no gain in helping them, at least when you're on the campaign trail.

12:21Jim Newell: I mean, we'll see what happens after Election Day, whether all these moratoriums stop and everyone's like, OK, we're through the election now. Continue building as you wish. But it just seems like, you know, acknowledging people's fears, even putting something out there that's superficial, you know, some sort of pause or some sort of signal that you're taking this quite seriously. It's really not a difficult political calculation.

12:46Patrick Reis: And Patrick, what are you seeing in the polling? Is this like a slam dunk issue? Like if you want to win your election in your state, just say like you're going to ban data centers and you're golden. Or what are the people actually saying in these polls?

12:59Jim Newell: So public opinion has been consistently low and is dropping, particularly related to data centers. A big issue that you hear at town halls, it's usually the first question, is what about this data center in my community? I was listening to Vivek Romaswamy have one of his town halls, and the first three questions were about it. and he was put on defense and had to lay out a new policy that he's rolled out where there's a list of criteria that any data center had to be met. It was interesting because it does seem like a roadmap to building a data center and he framed it as instead, you know, here's an anti-data center policy.

13:43Jim Newell: So I think a lot of candidates are trying to walk a line where they're not killing this influential and big industry that still has plenty of pull in Washington while presenting themselves to constituents as someone who is staunchly opposed to this industry.

13:56Patrick Reis: That's fascinating. As I was coming to tape our interview, there was a note, I think, from Morgan Stanley saying one of the biggest challenges to just even powering data centers in the coming year or two is opposition from people. It's not capacity or the energy market, it's just literally people. Those meddlesome people getting in the way of the money. Speaking of, either of you can take this one. I mean, so AI is really unpopular. People hate the data centers. Trump is, he's supposed to be a populist kind of master, yet he's coming out, he's calling AI a hoax. He has, he supports data centers.

14:34Patrick Reis: He says, you know, slowing that down, I believe would be a mistake. So how are we, why? Why does he love something that the people don't love? He's usually so smart about these kinds of things, right?

14:50Jim Newell: A few reasons. I think one is that he's made up with big tech since his first administration when he was very hostile to them. He's friendly to them. They go to Mar-a-Lago. They give him gifts. They donate to his political action committee. So he's on good terms with AI. But it's also, I think as Patrick mentioned earlier, I think AI build out is responsible for what? Something like 50 % of the growth in GDP right now? which is what he's relying on to sustain his presidency and argue that he's the greatest president or leader of any kind in world history. So he sees it and he takes things so personally.

15:26Jim Newell: He sees an attack on trying to stop AI development as an attack on his economy or an attack on what could be a legacy item for him. You know, if he's remembered for the one who supported this great new infrastructure, this great new technology in his second term and people try to stop that, he sees that as, you know, they're going after Trump again. You notice he compares these criticisms of AI development or doomsday warnings or data center hostility. He compares it to the Russia hoax, you know, which to him is the ultimate example of treason, you know, that they spent years investigating him for potential collusion with with Russia in his 2016 campaign.

16:09Jim Newell: And I mean, there is if, too, if I want to, you know, this big argument coming from people who are most supportive of the AI in the government is that we have to do it because China is doing it and we can't lose to China. And it's important for national security. So there's an element of that in what he's saying, too. But he does seem to just see it as he gets so unusually mad about how people criticize data centers. You know, he said, like, if we kill the golden goose, we'll get what we deserve. Or he may have said you'll get what you deserve. Like talking about voters that way. It's just really it's it's unusual.

16:43Yeah.

16:44Patrick Reis: And I guess the other twist, Patrick, is Trump isn't wrong. I mean, AI right now, AI development and investment is really boosting GDP growth and the economy and the stock market. And without it, things would look very different right now in the economy. All that said, I don't think the people who oppose data centers, these troublesome people getting in the way of data centers, regular people, I don't think they see the economy and say, this is going great. I think we see over and over again in the polls, people have terrible views. They think the economy is going terribly. They hate inflation.

17:23Patrick Reis: They see gas prices. I mean, is this even a winning kind of way or frame? I mean, what do you think? Is this a winning frame for the president here? You can't even make this argument.

17:36Jim Newell: He's simultaneously slamming the brake and hitting the gas. You can't have a war in Iran that's complicated energy shipments around the world and driven up gas prices and caused all sorts of economic dislocation. We'll at the same time be going all in on the idea that you are the economic steward of the millennium. And he's at other times told people, well, it's OK that you're paying a little more for gas. this is going to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And so he's essentially created all sorts of economic complications, which means that it's just a really tough time for him to be making the argument that voters should keep his party in power due to an economy that, per polling, they don't love.

18:17Jim Newell: It is true that the economy is uneven. There are lots of positive metrics that I think get less focus. But I think, as we saw in 2024, the salient economic metric for people is prices. And that's because, well, unemployment inflicts a lot of pain on a select few people. Inflation inflicts some pain on almost everyone. And so I think as he deals with that, he's going to find himself with a lot of trouble. And I think it's another reason why he's extremely reticent to see anything get in the way of the big AI infrastructure buildup.

18:58Patrick Reis: We'll be right back after a quick break.

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21:04Patrick Reis: So is the pro-AI stance that Trump has taken, is that the whole GOP's stance? Republicans going to be the pro-AI party going forward?

21:15Jim Newell: I think we're going to have to see where the dust settles after the election. Right now, everyone's just running for cover where they can. So you've seen the GOP definitely take a it depends on the race, but in people in competitive districts definitely take a much harder line against them. Really kind of trying to outflank Democrats once they got a little surprised by this issue and realize how vulnerable they are on it. Look at the Wisconsin governor's race. You have that's Republican Tom Tiffany versus Democrat David Crowley. And David Crowley was a little bit during the primary, a little wishy washy about whether you do a moratorium.

21:50Jim Newell: You know, he, I think, recognized the value of this investment that could come from AI, but he was he was hedging a little bit. So Tom Tiffany, the Republicans, started calling him data center David Crowley, you know, and putting money behind like these attacks on him, saying he's the one who's going to, you know, expand data centers when he gets in. So you're seeing you are seeing I think in Westchester County, New York, Mike Lawler's district there. He's one of the most vulnerable House Republicans. He's run ads against his opponent, his Democratic opponent, you know, talking about how much money she's taken from tech companies, things like that.

22:27Jim Newell: So you're seeing a little bit of this repositioning and everyone just saying what they have to say to get through the midterms. I'm curious, you know, the day after the midterms, if maybe we get a better sense of what everyone's true beliefs are in this. But right now, if you're in a tight race, it's not a good position to go out there and say, like, you know what? AI companies can come to our backyard and do whatever they want.

22:51Patrick Reis: It's the future.

22:53Jim Newell: Yeah. What are you guys so scared of? In Texas, Governor Abbott just went after water users at data centers and to the, I think, great relief of candidate Ken Paxton, Senate candidate Ken Paxton. And so they're trying to send a very clear signal to voters that they are on the popular side of this issue. And I think it's noteworthy that they're using the tools already at their disposal in water policy, which, of course, in Texas is a big deal. So and that was just last week. And I think you'll see more of that in the between now and say early November. It's going to be interesting to see where Democrats like if Democrats win a lot of these governor's races where they campaign pretty hard against AI.

23:37Well, if they actually get in the office and they have the chance to bring in these big

23:41Jim Newell: companies and these companies say, you know, we can create X number of jobs, it'll be interesting to see the extent to which they walk back some of their own, you know, hard line stances against data centers, too. Yeah, it's interesting.

23:53Patrick Reis: Everyone, well, with the exception, perhaps, of the president of the United States, it seems like candidates on both sides are very much against data centers, very much against AI. So it's like the question to ask is, why wouldn't that just continue? If the people are against AI and all the candidates on both sides are against AI, what's pushing in the opposite direction, do you think?

24:14Jim Newell: Well, I mean, one interesting thing about how I think the AI companies kind of understand that through this election, they're going to get hit a lot. And after that, they'll figure out where things are. Yeah. But the House of Representatives and Senate came back last week and there was all this talk about AI killing everyone. And they talked about whether we'd set up a task force or a select committee to look at this next time. But it really didn't go that far. You know, there weren't any there wasn't a massive piece of legislation that would destroy the AI companies coming out. And Democratic candidates in swing districts have been warned, you know, don't go too hard on AI because we are six weeks from the election.

24:55Jim Newell: and they have unlimited money that they could put into campaigns right now. I mean, you're seeing this happen with crypto right now. So last week, the Senate blocked this big crypto bill that the crypto industry was relying on. A couple of days later here, now Monday morning, crypto's big super PAC is spending$30 million against Sherrod Brown, the Democratic candidate in Ohio, as kind of a payback. So there is a little bit like, you know, what's pushing against them? I mean, part of it is money. Like they don't want to see all this unloaded on them right now. But I think also, you know, no one in.

25:30Jim Newell: I think it's going to be a little more complicated how this all resolves than the election season will allow for.

25:37Patrick Reis: You mentioned Ohio. And a few weeks ago, Axios, where I work, we published a memo from a Senate Republican campaign spending group, basically calling data centers politically radioactive and calling out Ohio specifically. So you mentioned Ohio and crypto. But Patrick, why Ohio? Why is Ohio like an important AI place?

26:05Jim Newell: I think if you look at the history of Ohio, there have been a lot of big promises made to the state about this thing will revitalize your economy or that thing will revitalize your economy. And I think a lot of voters are saying, wait, we've heard this before. We've heard a little economic pain and a lot of change now. But don't worry, down the line, you know, the factories will be humming and the jobs will be flowing in. And I think for a state that understandably has a lot of skepticism of big economic promises, another company coming in and making them is a particularly touchy issue. It sort of reminds me of when the Trans-Pacific Partnership was being debated in 2013.

26:45Jim Newell: And then again, in the second round in 2016, candidates were tripping over themselves to run away from something that had previously been mutually supported. because in states like Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin, there's just a feeling that any time a big promise is made about short-term pain for long-term gain, it just brings up some really painful memories of states getting hollowed out and it taking a long, long time for them to regain their economic footing. And I think Sherrod Brown is well positioned to take advantage of that given his long connections to labor and his long history with voters in that state.

27:22Jim Newell: And so I can see why in Ohio, Republicans would be particularly nervous about being seen as the AI party.

27:28Patrick Reis: Yeah. Sherrod Brown is like he was he was populist before Donald Trump made it cool. Right. I mean, he he really this is sort of seems like a perfect issue for that guy, Jim.

27:39Jim Newell: Yeah, absolutely. He is more than enough to work with with John Husted, his, you know, being more of a traditional business side Republican who wasn't too skeptical about this until a month ago. Mm hmm. It's also a big issue in Ohio because, you know, there's a site that they've lost two billion dollars in revenue because of the some of the tax incentives they give into the big tech companies to come.

28:02Patrick Reis: Wow. So that's, you know, increasing some of the anger.

28:06Jim Newell: And just to give another example of Patrick was referencing, I mean, Patrick is a Wisconsinite, we'll remember. But the the whole Foxconn fiasco in Wisconsin. Oh, yeah. This is the eighth wonder of the world. Former President Trump and former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker promised a high-tech mecca well worth the nearly$4 billion in state and local incentives. The company promised 13 ,000 jobs. But almost immediately, there were what Foxconn called unanticipated market fluctuations. There was that huge, you know, factory. There was going to be 800 billion jobs coming in or whatever, and it just dried up in the dust.

28:43Jim Newell: And that's why it was a huge issue in that in that Democratic governor's primary. But, yeah, all across the Midwest, you know, there's that that skepticism is there.

28:53Patrick Reis: But there's a lot of you mentioned Brown's competitor sort of like becoming a opponent just recently. And there's a lot of like these like frantic kind of like 180s happening in a lot of these races in Florida. I guess GOP representative Byron Daniels said he at first said no way, ain't no data center bans coming. And then a few weeks later said he was going to he spent he spent money on ads promising to protect the state from from data centers. Are there other places where there's some kind of fun 180s?

29:29Jim Newell: Yeah, I think the biggest one is Texas. Greg Abbott, he's running for his fourth term now as governor of Texas. His whole model has been kind of luring companies from California or other blue states with tax incentives and a better business environment. And so he, of course, brought that to AI last year. Google made this huge investment and he said, we want to make Texas the epicenter of AI. And so then over this summer, you know, there's these enormous, you know, what are they? Megawatt, gigawatt? I don't know the technical term. Big. These enormous, yeah, big, very big data center projects coming to Texas.

30:14Jim Newell: And it's, you know, irritating a lot of his constituents, especially rural constituents. So he did a pretty big 180, put a halt on the approval process, a moratorium. He went out and did a big national TV interview where he said these tech companies, you know, who they think they are. Like they didn't make their case to the people. They got what they deserve. So that was kind of the big signal to everyone else, which was, you know, run and take cover now. And so I think it's almost become the default position now that you have to at least have a moratorium, a temporary moratorium, you know, at least until we get through the elections.

30:52Jim Newell: And now Greg Abbott's doing the same thing with with Flock cameras, which are another AI assisted technology that everyone's up in arms about. He had a board that was really approving a lot of those projects in Texas. And now he's also put a hold on that. I think post-election you'll see a lot of these moratoriums become a little bit more sort of facilitating bills where it's like it won't surprise me if you get statewide bills for what you need to do to build a data center that include local preemption of additional regulations. because I think these companies know that the jig is up in terms of free reign to build data centers.

31:29Jim Newell: But I think they would gladly take statewide rules, standardized policies over a patchwork of county or municipal regulations about who can build what. And it won't surprise me if I'm a big tap company and I'm looking at all the rhetoric now, I think per Jim's point earlier, I'm really waiting to see what happens after the election, because I do think statewide politicians, particularly ones with deep ties to industry, are going to be really reticent to turn away large scale investment from some of the biggest and wealthiest companies in America.

32:05Patrick Reis: And I guess to bring it back to Trump, I mean, he has said, and it's generally people think the midterms are sort of a referendum on his presidency. Are they what to make of this in the context of AI? Are they also referendum on his AI policy stance?

32:23Jim Newell: I don't think that I mean, the midterms are still a story about. Trump, it is still a referendum on Trump. Trump has asked it to be a referendum on Trump about the cost of living, about the Iran war, about, you know, excesses of the Trump administration or I mean, those are still the big issues. AI is kind of back there as another factor in these races that maybe wasn't seen a year ago. I think it's going to be maybe the defining issue of 2028. I think this is kind of a little preview. We probably won't be talking about data centers explicitly in 2028. We'll be talking about whatever's next, you know, but, you know, someone had the line like today is the day when AI is the smallest part of your life.

33:13Jim Newell: It's only going to keep getting bigger and bigger every year. And so I think it's just going to keep rising up voters' beliefs. I don't know if it'll ever surpass cost of living, but those two things will get more intertwined, too.

33:30Patrick Reis: To wrap it up, I was going to ask you which 2026 race is like most most on your radar this week could be big stakes or maybe something small stakes, but interesting. Jim, you got something?

33:43Jim Newell: Well, as it happens, I have a big piece out today on Slate.com about the Texas Senate race and kind of looking at the history of Democrats trying to turn Texas blue and places where that the several times where people got their hopes up. I remember Democrats. Yeah. Yeah. And talk to him. He's featured in the story. Of course. So that is one I'm watching very closely. I do think it is of a different nature this cycle. You know, when you look at those polls, He's been leading in every poll by a couple of points on average.

34:20Patrick Reis: That's James Tallarico.

34:22Jim Newell: James Tallarico. Like those polls, I think at the moment are accurate. The big question is in the last two weeks or so, about 100 million dollars or so in Republican outside spending, Super PAC spending has has come to Texas to rescue Ken Paxson, his opponent. We're going to find out if that if that does a trick, if that can, you know, help Republican voters in Texas come home. and feel comfortable voting for Paxton. And, you know, once again, Texas stays red. So that's what I'm watching. Patrick? So about as far from AI as you can get, the other week there was a debate in Alaska between Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican Dan S.

35:06Jim Newell: Sullivan, not to be confused with the other candidate on the ballot, Dan Sullivan. And the entire debate was about who would do better by local fisheries. I learned so much listening to this. It was a great hour on C-SPAN radio. But some terms that were thrown around were lower 48ers, Seattle-based trawling companies, how the pollock catch is undermining the salmon catch.

35:33Patrick Reis: I always say that.

35:34Jim Newell: It's just, you know, if you've heard it once, you've heard it a million times. But it was a fascinating debate. It's going to be a great race. and it seems like it's shaping up to be close. So if anyone at Slate.com would like to send me to Alaska in the next few weeks, just let me know.

35:53Patrick Reis: Jim, Patrick, thank you so much for talking to me.

35:56Jim Newell: Yeah, thanks for having me on. Really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.

36:00Patrick Reis: Jim Newell is the senior politics writer at Slate. Patrick Rice is his editor. And you can check out Jim's big piece on Texas and James Tallarico on the homepage at Slate.com. We'll also drop a link in the show notes. And that's the show. What Next is produced by Evan Campbell, Madeline Thames-Ducharme, and Patrick Ford. Paige Osborne is the senior supervising producer of What Next and What Next TVD. Milo Bell is the executive producer of podcasts here at Slate. Ben Richman is the senior director of podcast operations here at Slate. And I'm Emily Peck. You can find me on Blue Sky. I'm at Emily R.

36:38Patrick Reis: Peck. And you can also find me every Saturday on Slate Money, where we cover the business and finance news of the week. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.

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