Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 2/23/26: Mexico Cartel Violence Explodes, Big Tech Freaks Over Data Center Backlash

Transcript

2/23/26: Mexico Cartel Violence Explodes, Big Tech Freaks Over Data Center Backlash · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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0:33
Speaker 2: All right, guys, we've been following some significant unrest in
0:37
Speaker 2: Mexico after the killing of a topcartel leader. We can
0:40
Speaker 2: put this article up on the screen from the Associated Press.
0:45
Speaker 2: They say here that Mexican Army kills leader of powerful
0:49
Speaker 2: Hollisco New Generation cartel during operation to capture him. The
0:53
Speaker 2: Mexican Army called the leader of that cartel, Elmencho he's
0:56
Speaker 2: known as on Sunday, decapitating what had become Mexico's most
0:59
Speaker 2: powerful drug cartel and thrusting swaws of the nation into chaos.
1:04
Speaker 2: Cars burned out by cartel members blocked roads more than
1:06
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty points in twenty Mexican states. Authority
1:09
Speaker 2: said and left smoke billowing into the air. Olisco's capital, Guadalajara,
1:13
Speaker 2: was turned into a ghost town Sunday night as civilians
1:16
Speaker 2: hunkered down. School was canceled Monday in several states, and
1:19
Speaker 2: authorities in a variety of states reported at least fourteen dead,
1:22
Speaker 2: including seven National Guard troops. Joining us to discuss these
1:26
Speaker 2: developments is the Latin America Desk head of drop Site News,
1:30
Speaker 2: Jose Luis Granados saiha.
1:32
Speaker 4: Great to see Jose, Good to see you. See you again, Hi.
1:36
Speaker 2: So we can put some of these images up on
1:38
Speaker 2: the screen of you know, cars burning, you can see
1:41
Speaker 2: fires all over the place, and guys, you can just
1:43
Speaker 2: let this run. As Jose brings us up to speed.
1:47
Speaker 2: You'll just give us a sense of what the mood
1:50
Speaker 2: is there in Mexico and how significant of a development
1:53
Speaker 2: this is.
1:54
Speaker 4: You know, in terms of how significant is this is
1:57
Speaker 4: probably the biggest fish they could possibly catch. Nemesio Sea Mencho,
2:02
Speaker 4: as he's more commonly known, was the major player when
2:04
Speaker 4: it came to organized crime here. It can't be overstated
2:07
Speaker 4: how significant, how big of an impact against organized crime
2:11
Speaker 4: groups this well capture and then his subsequent death really
2:15
Speaker 4: is for Mexico. And that's why we saw sort of
2:17
Speaker 4: this response in the streets from his associates in these
2:20
Speaker 4: organized crime groups Carteljlisco, cj NNG or Las Cuatro Letras,
2:26
Speaker 4: the four letters. They have various names. They're kind of
2:29
Speaker 4: they are the largest organized crime group here, the most powerful,
2:32
Speaker 4: the most well connected. It's said that they were rivaling,
2:36
Speaker 4: you know, Intertransnational Corporation in terms of their reach and
2:39
Speaker 4: their international business connections. What was interesting about them is
2:43
Speaker 4: that they sort of were, in a way a kind
2:45
Speaker 4: of a new manifestation of organized crime groups. I think
2:48
Speaker 4: a lot of times people think of the cartels you
2:50
Speaker 4: know of.
2:51
Speaker 5: You know, Sinaloa, El Chapel, right, Felix Ariano, all of
2:56
Speaker 5: these different groups from you know, the series Netflix that
2:59
Speaker 5: covered the the Mexican organized crime situation.
3:02
Speaker 4: This one was a little bit different in that they
3:04
Speaker 4: were able to fill a vacuum incredibly quickly, grow incredibly quickly.
3:08
Speaker 4: And that's because they operated sort of learning the lessons
3:11
Speaker 4: of the previous cartel groups of not necessarily kind of
3:14
Speaker 4: wanting to virtual vertically integrate everything. They were kind of
3:17
Speaker 4: almost like a franchise model, where you know, people kind
3:22
Speaker 4: of pay tribute to the central organization without necessarily being
3:26
Speaker 4: tied to it. And that's generally true of organized crime groups.
3:28
Speaker 4: They're far less organized that I think people think.
3:31
Speaker 1: But this is of course huge.
3:32
Speaker 4: I mean, he was the top of this organized crime group.
3:34
Speaker 4: They had presence quite literally in every corner of this country,
3:37
Speaker 4: obviously mostly concentrated in the states where they were most active,
3:41
Speaker 4: like Kalisco, and that's where we saw the most violence.
3:43
Speaker 4: And I think to explain that, obviously we all saw
3:46
Speaker 4: these scenes of you know, billowing cars and roads being blocked,
3:49
Speaker 4: and of course, you know those are disturbing to see,
3:52
Speaker 4: but they shouldn't be overstated. You know, the article that
3:54
Speaker 4: you read to introduce this piece talked about the chaos
3:56
Speaker 4: and things like that. But that's precisely what these groups
3:59
Speaker 4: wanted to do. So they had their leader captured, and
4:02
Speaker 4: so as an act of protest you can think of,
4:04
Speaker 4: they go and unleash these kinds of acts of violence,
4:07
Speaker 4: these acts of intimidation in a sense, to send a
4:10
Speaker 4: message to say they're unhappy with what just happened to
4:13
Speaker 4: deliver a message to the federal government, the Mexican government,
4:16
Speaker 4: which was responsible for this operation, but also to show
4:19
Speaker 4: who's the strong actor, because now there's going to be,
4:22
Speaker 4: as always happens when you take out the top, when
4:24
Speaker 4: you decapitate these organizations, a bit of a competition in
4:27
Speaker 4: terms of who's going to now try to compete to
4:30
Speaker 4: become the new head of the organization. And what we
4:32
Speaker 4: saw yesterday in a sense is that is people trying
4:35
Speaker 4: to flex their own muscle to show, Look how many
4:37
Speaker 4: men I can mobilize, Look how much you know unrest
4:40
Speaker 4: I can cause I'm the one who should really rise.
4:42
Speaker 1: Up to be the next leader of this organization.
4:44
Speaker 3: That's very interesting. I didn't realize that, Jose as I
4:47
Speaker 3: understand it as well. Part of the reason that they
4:49
Speaker 3: do this is to inflict pain on the Mexican government.
4:52
Speaker 3: Not only is it bad publicity, but you know, there's
4:54
Speaker 3: a significant number of US tourists who are in the
4:58
Speaker 3: region who are you know, some of them were altering
5:00
Speaker 3: in place in their hotels, and obviously you know these
5:02
Speaker 3: things go viral or impact their tourism industry. How does
5:06
Speaker 3: the Mexican government come to the conclusion to carry out
5:10
Speaker 3: something like this, because we've seen in the past, you know,
5:12
Speaker 3: with the Chapitos, that famous raid and there was a
5:15
Speaker 3: massive gunfight and people were you know, there were bullets
5:18
Speaker 3: spraying in the streets and all of that. So they
5:21
Speaker 3: know this is going to happen. How do they come
5:23
Speaker 3: to the conclusion ultimately to conduct a raid like this?
5:27
Speaker 4: So here in Mexico we have a National Security Cabinet,
5:30
Speaker 4: and that is essentially the body that's tess with making
5:32
Speaker 4: these difficult decisions. And part of the kind of calculation
5:36
Speaker 4: is that, in fact, under the previous government, now the
5:39
Speaker 4: Shinbam's predecessor, Nopus Obrador, there was that famous case where
5:42
Speaker 4: one of n Champo's sons was ultimately let go because
5:45
Speaker 4: they made the evaluation that the kind of violence that
5:48
Speaker 4: this was going to unleash was basically not worth it.
5:51
Speaker 4: You know, there was a calculation link should we proceed
5:54
Speaker 4: with his detention and allow them to unleash the kind
5:57
Speaker 4: of violence that we expect them to, or should we
5:59
Speaker 4: come to walk away and find a better moment for this.
6:02
Speaker 4: I think what's important about this one is that there's
6:04
Speaker 4: a couple of things. One there was important intelligence that
6:07
Speaker 4: was shared from the United States. Apparently both the US
6:09
Speaker 4: government the Mexican government have now said as much that
6:12
Speaker 4: there was key intelligence here. It sounds like they knew
6:15
Speaker 4: where he was, that this was a good chance to
6:17
Speaker 4: grab him where he wasn't being heavily protected, where they
6:20
Speaker 4: were less able to kind of mobilize, and so it
6:22
Speaker 4: seems that that's the reason they took the decision. This
6:24
Speaker 4: was a good moment, they had good intelligence, they could
6:26
Speaker 4: act on it. But the other one was also kind
6:28
Speaker 4: of understanding that they needed it to strike against these
6:32
Speaker 4: organized crime groups. They needed to I think, in a
6:33
Speaker 4: lot of ways send a message, not just to the
6:37
Speaker 4: organized crimes groups themselves, to say that we're serious about
6:40
Speaker 4: going after you, that this is a different kind of
6:42
Speaker 4: administration in terms of a much stronger, heavier hand when
6:46
Speaker 4: it comes to these groups, but also a message to
6:48
Speaker 4: Donald Trump to the White House to say you know
6:51
Speaker 4: that right now, the debate that seems to be happening
6:54
Speaker 4: in the United States is whether there should be unilateral
6:56
Speaker 4: military action by the United States in Mexico. Mexico obviously
6:59
Speaker 4: has said no, that's a redline for this government. They
7:01
Speaker 4: would view it as a violation of sovereignty. But you
7:04
Speaker 4: have to continually make that case because Donald Trump has
7:06
Speaker 4: said on many occasions he wants to send troops into Mexico,
7:09
Speaker 4: he wants to use drone strikes, and Mexican President Glaudias
7:12
Speaker 4: Shambam has said, you can share intelligence, but when it
7:15
Speaker 4: comes to military action, we conduct it because this is
7:17
Speaker 4: our territory. And I think this is in a lot
7:19
Speaker 4: of ways really good for the Mexican government in that
7:21
Speaker 4: sense to say, look, share this information, we can act
7:24
Speaker 4: on it, and we can take care of it. And obviously,
7:27
Speaker 4: now the task is to deal with the fallout, to
7:30
Speaker 4: deal with these incidents. Although they've largely been under control.
7:34
Speaker 4: As of yesterday, ninety percent of all the roadblocks had
7:36
Speaker 4: been stopped, had been kind of, you know, de established.
7:39
Speaker 4: But you know, this morning, Gladysheimmum's in her morning press
7:42
Speaker 4: conference now and she's giving the message as we speak,
7:45
Speaker 4: essentially giving the same thing that things are now fully
7:47
Speaker 4: under control.
7:49
Speaker 2: Sure is there a fear that you know, you're sort
7:51
Speaker 2: of damned if you do, damned if you don't, if
7:53
Speaker 2: you don't strike this cartel leader and take him out.
7:56
Speaker 2: Then the US government says, see, they're not dealing with
7:59
Speaker 2: the cartels. We have to go out and take you
8:01
Speaker 2: in a lateral action. But then when you do take
8:04
Speaker 2: out the cartile leader, it leads not just to these
8:06
Speaker 2: flare ups, but the expectation is there probably will be
8:09
Speaker 2: some sort of turf war and potential increased violence, and
8:12
Speaker 2: then the US government can look at that. Trump can
8:14
Speaker 2: look at that and say, see, look at all this
8:16
Speaker 2: escalating violence they need as we have to go in.
8:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's quite likely that there'll be some actors
8:21
Speaker 4: who will make that kind of case and say, well,
8:23
Speaker 4: look look at everything that's happening. You don't have under control.
8:26
Speaker 4: And that's actually why I think we saw online yesterday
8:30
Speaker 4: just fake images, artificial intelligence. There was this image of
8:33
Speaker 4: a plane on fire that was not real whatsoever. You know,
8:36
Speaker 4: somebody apparently triggered an alarm inside of the airport in
8:39
Speaker 4: Gua la Dajada and that made some people panic, and
8:42
Speaker 4: then somebody took that image and said, look, the commandos
8:45
Speaker 4: from the organized crime groups have taken over the airport
8:47
Speaker 4: because they want to sow this chaos. They want to
8:49
Speaker 4: sow this kind of sense of a lack of control
8:52
Speaker 4: in order to I think in one in one regard
8:55
Speaker 4: try to support this argument that it's out of control
8:57
Speaker 4: and the Mexican government can't handle it, but also to
9:00
Speaker 4: try to I said at the beginning, to to send
9:02
Speaker 4: this message that they are more powerful than perhaps people
9:06
Speaker 4: account for.
9:06
Speaker 1: Right.
9:07
Speaker 4: And you know, I think on one of the reasons
9:09
Speaker 4: they also acted yesterday is that there's very small windows
9:11
Speaker 4: of opportunity. These are wildly actors. I mean, how many
9:14
Speaker 4: times did El Chapo escape from custody? Right, it's only
9:17
Speaker 4: because he's been extradited and it's more difficult for him
9:20
Speaker 4: to be able to kind of engage in the bribery
9:23
Speaker 4: that it takes to be able to get free, that
9:24
Speaker 4: he's still in custody today. And so I think that
9:27
Speaker 4: window they saw it as as a good one to act,
9:30
Speaker 4: and yes, cognizant of the consequences in terms of what
9:33
Speaker 4: will happen next. The case of is curious too, because
9:38
Speaker 4: you know, for example, with the you know, the X
9:41
Speaker 4: I don't know what to call it, kids, he wasn't extradite,
9:43
Speaker 4: and the kidnapping of El Mayo, you know, that created
9:46
Speaker 4: a lot of unrest as well, But I think that's
9:49
Speaker 4: because there was already kind of a dispute internally between
9:54
Speaker 4: rival factions inside of that cartel where you had the
9:57
Speaker 4: Chapito's and the Maitos, and so that that's part of
10:00
Speaker 4: why we saw so much more violence, and this one
10:02
Speaker 4: it doesn't look like there's a natural successor a lot
10:05
Speaker 4: of his closest associates and Mental's closest associates are either
10:08
Speaker 4: dead or in jail, and so you know, his son
10:11
Speaker 4: is already detained, his daughters are not that active, so
10:15
Speaker 4: it's not clear who will take over. There's likely going
10:17
Speaker 4: to be a lot of internal power disputes and they're
10:20
Speaker 4: going to do it through violence, and so there it's
10:22
Speaker 4: important to see in terms of what's the actual capacity
10:26
Speaker 4: of the Mexican National Guard, the Mexican armed forces to
10:29
Speaker 4: ensure security, particularly in these kinds of hot spots where
10:32
Speaker 4: they are most active. That really is the major challenge today, Jose.
10:36
Speaker 3: How does the Mexican government deal with the It's kind
10:41
Speaker 3: of a maybe too broad of a question, but with
10:43
Speaker 3: US security, so like, for example, you've had the US
10:46
Speaker 3: intelligence sharing that happened that led to this red but
10:50
Speaker 3: we also saw earlier there was an incident. Maybe you
10:52
Speaker 3: can tell us about where a drug dealer international fugitive
10:56
Speaker 3: was seized by the United States, and cash Betel took
10:59
Speaker 3: credit for it, but the Mexicans were like, hey man,
11:01
Speaker 3: you weren't supposed to talk about that, Like, we don't
11:03
Speaker 3: like to acknowledge how much we share back and forth.
11:07
Speaker 3: Does how does a Mexican government handle that domestically? Like
11:11
Speaker 3: why are they so reticent to admit US cooperation to
11:14
Speaker 3: the Mexican public? Is there a political dynamic I'm missing?
11:17
Speaker 3: How does that work?
11:19
Speaker 1: Yeah?
11:19
Speaker 4: So the case you're referred to as this Canadian apparently
11:23
Speaker 4: an Olympic athlete who was accused of being you know,
11:26
Speaker 4: well positioned an important player in organized crimes. And yeah,
11:29
Speaker 4: it's still actually not clear exactly whether or not he
11:32
Speaker 4: turned himself in, whether it was an operation, was it
11:34
Speaker 4: done by Mexican forces, did the FBI participate directly? That
11:38
Speaker 4: would be extraordinary unusual. I have trouble believing cash Hotel
11:42
Speaker 4: sometimes because we know he has a pension for wanting
11:45
Speaker 4: to tell his own story in his own way that
11:48
Speaker 4: kind of inflates his role in all of this. So
11:51
Speaker 4: I would you know, be hesitant to believe to take
11:53
Speaker 4: his you know, totally as believable. But are You're right,
11:57
Speaker 4: there is a certain kind of reluctance on the Mexican
12:00
Speaker 4: government to admit this, and a lot of that is
12:02
Speaker 4: because of the nationalist sentiment. More and her political party
12:06
Speaker 4: is a very Mexican nationalist movement. It's kind of one
12:09
Speaker 4: of the pillars of their political ideology. And it is seen,
12:13
Speaker 4: as you know, almost as offensive that we would need
12:19
Speaker 4: the support of the United States for all of this. Right,
12:21
Speaker 4: That's why it's such a hard line to not permit
12:24
Speaker 4: unilateral military action by the United States or even the
12:26
Speaker 4: presence of US troops in actual operations. They are Uria's
12:30
Speaker 4: troops here for trainings when was recently approved by the
12:32
Speaker 4: Mexican Senate, for example. So there's a there's a dislike
12:36
Speaker 4: for it amongst the population, and I think because people
12:40
Speaker 4: are worried that it would be a super slope. Right,
12:42
Speaker 4: How do US entanglements abroad always begin. It always starts
12:45
Speaker 4: with that, with training, with advice. Oh, well, we should
12:48
Speaker 4: use some information. But you are right to point out
12:50
Speaker 4: that there's an extraordinary amount of information sharing, in fact,
12:53
Speaker 4: more than we probably know. Gladys Sheinbaum and Donald Trump
12:57
Speaker 4: apparently had more than a dozen phone calls. But we
12:59
Speaker 4: only really know that details of a handful of them.
13:01
Speaker 4: So they're obviously high level negotiations. And that's how the
13:03
Speaker 4: Mexican government likes to do things, I think, particularly with
13:07
Speaker 4: the administration we have in the United States now, where
13:09
Speaker 4: you know, they are boastful and they like to, you know,
13:12
Speaker 4: stretch the truth, to be polite about it, right, And
13:15
Speaker 4: so she's like I often, she says, I often don't
13:18
Speaker 4: like to respond to whatever his public statements he makes.
13:20
Speaker 4: We have our conversations. They happen at the table, they
13:22
Speaker 4: happen behind closed doors. That's what's actually important in the
13:25
Speaker 4: bilateral relationship.
13:26
Speaker 1: Got it?
13:26
Speaker 2: And how did most Mexicans feel about how Shinbaum is
13:29
Speaker 2: navigating the relationship with the US.
13:32
Speaker 4: Well, I think they would be feel encouraged. I think
13:35
Speaker 4: they are feel very positive about it. She has extraordinarily
13:38
Speaker 4: high approval ratings. They oscillate between seventy and eighty percent.
13:41
Speaker 4: I mean the kinds of approval ratings people are unheard
13:44
Speaker 4: of in most parts of the world, and part of it,
13:47
Speaker 4: you know, one of the places where she does receive criticism,
13:50
Speaker 4: where people feel like more needs to be done, is
13:52
Speaker 4: precisely aroun of security under the previous administration of Lopos Obradorda,
13:56
Speaker 4: there was a pretty major shift in the security strategy
13:59
Speaker 4: where they went from an all out war, you know,
14:01
Speaker 4: they stopped talking about war, they stopped talking about, you know,
14:04
Speaker 4: the war against the cartels, and instead started focusing more
14:08
Speaker 4: on investigation prevention above all, this philosophy of investing in
14:14
Speaker 4: communities and in young people to try to dissuade them
14:16
Speaker 4: from organized crimeums. And I think in a lot of
14:18
Speaker 4: ways it was affected. But we're also dealing with really violent,
14:23
Speaker 4: heavily armed, and extremely well funded organizations where social investment
14:28
Speaker 4: is not going to be enough, right, And I do
14:29
Speaker 4: think that with Glaudy Scheinbaum, and she probably wouldn't say
14:33
Speaker 4: as much so as to not seem as if she's
14:35
Speaker 4: disagreeing with her predecessor because of the important place he
14:39
Speaker 4: occupies in the kind of political imaginary in this country.
14:42
Speaker 4: But I do think has taken a far more aggressive
14:44
Speaker 4: approach of wanting to go after these major figures of
14:48
Speaker 4: I think part of it is naturally due to the
14:51
Speaker 4: pressure of the United States to kind of, you know,
14:53
Speaker 4: have more things to show off in terms of successes.
14:58
Speaker 4: But I do think that a lot of people are
15:00
Speaker 4: are feeling reassured, you know, a feeling like actions are
15:05
Speaker 4: being done and that steps are being taken to attend
15:08
Speaker 4: to the kind of quality.
15:09
Speaker 1: Of life things.
15:10
Speaker 4: You know, organized crime grofts have been active here in
15:12
Speaker 4: this country for decades, right, but it's sort of their
15:15
Speaker 4: their interventions there. They're the way that they actually affect
15:19
Speaker 4: the day to day of people that really kind of
15:20
Speaker 4: undermines their confidence and the ability the state to handle this.
15:24
Speaker 1: Right, So, the.
15:25
Speaker 4: Kidnappings, the extortion, all of that, actually under her security
15:28
Speaker 4: chief or Madragracia Hartfuch, who incidentally was once a target
15:32
Speaker 4: of the very man who was killed yesterday, has been
15:35
Speaker 4: far more on investigation and actually you know, going after
15:39
Speaker 4: the money that provides them the ability to engage in
15:42
Speaker 4: all of this. And you know, we're seeing a very
15:44
Speaker 4: slight increase I think in the approval ratings when it
15:48
Speaker 4: comes to security here in Mexico because of that small
15:50
Speaker 4: shift but important shift in her security strategy.
15:53
Speaker 1: So interesting.
15:54
Speaker 2: One more question I have for you on a somewhat
15:57
Speaker 2: separate note, and I asked the same question of Professor
15:59
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Sachs, who we had on a bit earlier, and
16:02
Speaker 2: this is with regard to Cuba. I'm sure you saw
16:04
Speaker 2: Supreme Court struck down Trump's ability to levy tariffs, you know,
16:07
Speaker 2: latterly using the AIPA authority. He had used this to
16:10
Speaker 2: threaten Mexico and to threaten shine Bomb to try to
16:13
Speaker 2: enforce this illegal oil embargo with Cuba. Do you think
16:17
Speaker 2: that that decision changes the calculus at all for the
16:20
Speaker 2: Shinebomb government?
16:22
Speaker 4: Well, it looks like Trump is going to go forward
16:24
Speaker 4: with it no matter what. And you know, Mexico has
16:27
Speaker 4: been threatened with tariffs on half a dozen occasions and
16:30
Speaker 4: has been able to talk their way out of it
16:32
Speaker 4: almost every single time, even this most recent one where
16:35
Speaker 4: he announced these kind of across the board tariffs on
16:37
Speaker 4: every country once again. Countries, Canada, Mexico and that's part
16:40
Speaker 4: of the USMCA are not are exempt from it. And
16:43
Speaker 4: so the thing about this one, in particular, the one
16:46
Speaker 4: about Cuba, is that my reading of it, it was
16:50
Speaker 4: primarily addressed to Mexico. Mexico, stopped sending your oil to Cuba,
16:54
Speaker 4: or We're going to impose this tariff on you. And
16:57
Speaker 4: I think the fact that we saw the government respond
16:59
Speaker 4: and suspended shipments tells us that in those closed doors negotiations.
17:05
Speaker 4: There was definitely a very clear threat to say that
17:07
Speaker 4: this one's serious. You're not gonna be able to talk
17:09
Speaker 4: your way out of this one, that we want to
17:11
Speaker 4: choke off the supply of oil to Cuba, and so
17:15
Speaker 4: you better play ball. And that's why we've seen them
17:17
Speaker 4: suspended because I think, you know, there's a lot of
17:20
Speaker 4: voices out there who are saying, well, why don't they
17:22
Speaker 4: just break the blockade, right, why don't they just kind
17:24
Speaker 4: of challenge colls bluff? You know, the United States is
17:27
Speaker 4: having some tricky economics numbers coming published out now, not
17:30
Speaker 4: less job creation, all of that. Can they really afford
17:32
Speaker 4: to put a tariff on its number one trading partner?
17:34
Speaker 4: And I think they would the end, I think they've
17:36
Speaker 4: transmitted that message to the Mexican government that this is serious,
17:39
Speaker 4: and so the only way out of this for the
17:41
Speaker 4: Mexican government is through negotiation, some kind of diplomatic breakthrough
17:45
Speaker 4: to convince them that if they don't allow Mexico or
17:48
Speaker 4: any other country to provide oil, then they're going to
17:50
Speaker 4: produce a massive humanitarian crisis, which itself is going to
17:53
Speaker 4: produce a huge refugee crisis, which is going to land
17:56
Speaker 4: on your doorstep, United States. So I think that's the
17:58
Speaker 4: kind of angle that they been pushing for, and it
18:01
Speaker 4: seems to be working. There seems to be your rumors
18:03
Speaker 4: of at least setting some oil come in so that
18:07
Speaker 4: the situation doesn't become such a big problem that we see,
18:10
Speaker 4: you know, millions of Cubans trying to leave the island
18:14
Speaker 4: because if they get no oil, we're talking about basically
18:17
Speaker 4: the collapse of society, right, you know, nothing works without energy,
18:20
Speaker 4: there's no food, there's no hospitals, there's no schools. I mean,
18:24
Speaker 4: it'll be a nightmare scenario for the Cuban people, which
18:27
Speaker 4: would absolutely produce a refugee crisis in the region and
18:30
Speaker 4: for the United States. And I don't think Marco Rubio
18:33
Speaker 4: Stephen Miller want to be tagged with that to say
18:35
Speaker 4: you're the reason there's a new migrants crisis here in
18:37
Speaker 4: the United States.
18:38
Speaker 2: Good point, we will say, Jose thank you so much.
18:42
Speaker 2: Great to have your analysis.
18:43
Speaker 4: No, thank you very much for inviting me. We'll see
18:45
Speaker 4: you next Tore.
18:48
Speaker 2: All right, guys, you know we have been tracking closely
18:51
Speaker 2: here some of the local pushback against data centers being
18:54
Speaker 2: located in communities across the country, and we are very
18:57
Speaker 2: fortunate to be joined this morning by a grassroots act
19:00
Speaker 2: who has had great success fighting and stopping a data
19:04
Speaker 2: center in New Jersey. So Charlie Cradeville is a Central
19:06
Speaker 2: Jersey organizer with Food and Water Watch. He's the founder
19:09
Speaker 2: and editor of New Brunswick Today, community news outlet that
19:12
Speaker 2: covers the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and he
19:15
Speaker 2: just led the successful and viral, I might add, campaign
19:18
Speaker 2: to kill amsat Capital Management's plan to build a new
19:20
Speaker 2: twenty seven thousand square foot data center near homes and
19:23
Speaker 2: businesses last week.
19:25
Speaker 1: Charlie, welcome.
19:25
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to have you.
19:26
Speaker 1: Sure, my pleasure A big fan you guys.
19:29
Speaker 2: Thanks man, Yeah, of course. So let's go ahead and
19:33
Speaker 2: play a little bit of this video and we can
19:35
Speaker 2: we can take a look at this is some of
19:37
Speaker 2: the celebration after your successful campaign to fight against this
19:42
Speaker 2: data center. So celebrations in the street, you know, screaming
19:46
Speaker 2: they we won, they canceled the data center. And then
19:49
Speaker 2: you also had quite a viral post as well that
19:52
Speaker 2: we can put up here. I mean, just amazingly viral.
19:54
Speaker 2: I'm sure you had no idea the way this would
19:55
Speaker 2: take off when you posted it and can see you know,
20:00
Speaker 2: your picture here you say we won no data center
20:04
Speaker 2: and they have to build a park. So take us
20:07
Speaker 2: behind the scenes here. What did this organizing effort look
20:10
Speaker 2: like and what was the type of coalition that you
20:13
Speaker 2: all were able to build on the ground.
20:15
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's something really special and unique about this campaign.
20:20
Speaker 6: You know, being a local journalist, I tend all the
20:22
Speaker 6: meetings and so I just happened to be at the
20:25
Speaker 6: New Brunswick Planning Board meeting the night that they revealed
20:28
Speaker 6: that this redevelopment plan included a data center that would
20:35
Speaker 6: be right near homes and businesses. You know, we didn't
20:37
Speaker 6: think of New Brunswick as a place where we might
20:39
Speaker 6: be having these types of proposals, but sure enough, this
20:41
Speaker 6: is the first time it's happened, and we really only
20:44
Speaker 6: had nine days before the city Council was supposed to
20:49
Speaker 6: approve it and finalize the redevelopment plan. And once it's
20:53
Speaker 6: in there, I know from experience how hard it can
20:55
Speaker 6: be to fight the site plans because they'll just say
20:58
Speaker 6: it's a permitted use in the redevelopment plan. And it
21:00
Speaker 6: was a really sloppy redevelopment plan with no limits or
21:03
Speaker 6: controls on how big it is or how many there
21:06
Speaker 6: could be. So yeah, they said a single twenty seven
21:10
Speaker 6: thousand square foot data center verbally at this one meeting,
21:13
Speaker 6: but there would be nothing stopping that private equity firm
21:17
Speaker 6: from coming back with a much larger or a more
21:21
Speaker 6: devastating proposal. And so yeah, I know work at Food
21:26
Speaker 6: and Water Watch, where we have called for a nationwide
21:30
Speaker 6: moratorium on large scale AI data centers, along with two
21:34
Speaker 6: hundred and fifty other groups, And so I knew the
21:36
Speaker 6: right people to contact, and I knew the right information
21:39
Speaker 6: to share, and in those nine days, we were able
21:43
Speaker 6: to build a coalition with students at Rutgers University, environmental
21:47
Speaker 6: groups around the state, and the local people who were.
21:51
Speaker 1: Going to be most affected.
21:52
Speaker 6: So you know, one of those pictures, I'm there knocking
21:54
Speaker 6: on doors in the Lincoln Gardens neighborhood to warn people
21:57
Speaker 6: that this proposal's coming up and you need to call
22:00
Speaker 6: your council president show up at this meeting. And you know,
22:04
Speaker 6: I was expecting a big response, but certainly it exceeded
22:07
Speaker 6: my wildest expectation.
22:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, Charlie, don't you are enemy number one to a
22:12
Speaker 3: lot of people in the tech industry, many of them.
22:16
Speaker 3: I know some of these people.
22:17
Speaker 1: They view you.
22:18
Speaker 3: And your ILK as they would call it, as the
22:21
Speaker 3: vanguard of the de growth movement, as people who refuse
22:25
Speaker 3: to accept this forward progress and productivity in their lives.
22:30
Speaker 3: Why were you even interested in blocking this data center
22:33
Speaker 3: in the first place.
22:36
Speaker 6: Well, I know how devastating they can be from some
22:39
Speaker 6: of my colleagues around the nation that have helped fight
22:43
Speaker 6: and in some cases have not been able to stop them.
22:45
Speaker 6: So they can be devastating to ecosystems. The noise and
22:50
Speaker 6: pollution can be harmful to humans, and it's the type
22:55
Speaker 6: of development that it's the opposite of job creation.
22:58
Speaker 1: Right.
22:58
Speaker 6: Normally we are in this sort of like environmentalists versus
23:01
Speaker 6: jobs dynamic. But these facilities have, you know, very few
23:07
Speaker 6: permanent jobs, and in fact, the artificial intelligence industry is
23:12
Speaker 6: famous for replacing human workers with computer technology and putting
23:16
Speaker 6: people out of work. So those arguments don't carry water.
23:19
Speaker 6: I have gotten a little taste of how strong the
23:22
Speaker 6: opposition is, and I knew that it was something that
23:25
Speaker 6: we needed to tap into here in New Brunswick because
23:28
Speaker 6: at the end of the day, I wanted our city
23:31
Speaker 6: Council to remember this moment next time a data center
23:35
Speaker 6: is proposed, and they'll just say no because they understand
23:38
Speaker 6: that the people don't want it, at least not here
23:41
Speaker 6: in our city. And yeah, I think you know, food
23:44
Speaker 6: and MORET and Watch is right to support a moratorium
23:46
Speaker 6: on this stuff because otherwise we're going to be making
23:49
Speaker 6: decisions that we're going to be locked into and we're
23:52
Speaker 6: going to come to regret.
23:53
Speaker 2: Let's put E four up on the screen here, because
23:57
Speaker 2: your movement is part of a rising push, rising local
24:00
Speaker 2: grassroots push against these data centers. This was a heat
24:05
Speaker 2: map report from a last month which set a mid
24:08
Speaker 2: rising local pushback US data centers. Data center cancelation surged
24:12
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty five. A heat map pro review a
24:14
Speaker 2: public record shows twenty five data centers scrub last year
24:18
Speaker 2: after local pushback that was four times as many as
24:21
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. You know, I live in a rural
24:23
Speaker 2: community in Virginia. Virginia has really been the you know,
24:26
Speaker 2: the epicenter of these data center locations, and I've seen
24:29
Speaker 2: the way that the awareness and activism around these data
24:34
Speaker 2: centers has shifted just in the past couple of years
24:36
Speaker 2: here as well. Why do you think that your success,
24:40
Speaker 2: you know, really sort of tapped into a zeitgeist. Why
24:44
Speaker 2: it was so important, why people found it so important.
24:47
Speaker 2: What do you think the issues are that you're touching
24:50
Speaker 2: on that are resonating really in a cross partisan and
24:53
Speaker 2: cross ideological way as well.
24:56
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean in New Brunswick we have a lot
24:58
Speaker 6: of development and redevelopment going on. I know there's a
25:00
Speaker 6: lot of frustration over it, but it's often you know,
25:04
Speaker 6: some people love it and some people don't love it.
25:07
Speaker 6: In this case, this is a piece of land that
25:09
Speaker 6: had been completely vacant for years. The developer kicked out
25:14
Speaker 6: small businesses to you know, supposedly had big plans and
25:18
Speaker 6: never delivered on them. So I knew the local people
25:21
Speaker 6: were not going to support a plan that was going
25:24
Speaker 6: to you know, basically change what was supposed to be
25:28
Speaker 6: a park to a big data center. I also knew
25:33
Speaker 6: that more broadly, people are very frustrated with artificial intelligence
25:37
Speaker 6: and the impacts it's having, how we're seeing so much
25:40
Speaker 6: misinformation and slop in our feeds that we didn't see
25:45
Speaker 6: just a few years ago, and how it's ultimately a
25:49
Speaker 6: big money maker for the extremely wealthy and virtually nothing
25:55
Speaker 6: is trickling down to regular folks. So different people have
25:58
Speaker 6: different reasons for opposing it, but it is it is
26:01
Speaker 6: definitely something that is widely felt and we're all sort
26:04
Speaker 6: of on the same side, whether you know, we don't
26:07
Speaker 6: like it because of the impact it's having on you know,
26:10
Speaker 6: our social media feeds, or the impact it's having on
26:13
Speaker 6: our economy, or the impact it's having on our environment,
26:16
Speaker 6: or just the fact that, you know, we don't want
26:19
Speaker 6: developers to be able to make the maximum profit without
26:22
Speaker 6: giving anything back to the community, and that's what we
26:25
Speaker 6: were seeing here with this redevelopment.
26:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's fascinating.
26:28
Speaker 3: So the response I've seen to you, Charlie, I'll read
26:30
Speaker 3: one from a VC who I know, Gary Tann. He says,
26:33
Speaker 3: a fully built data center complex generates thirty one million
26:36
Speaker 3: dollars a year in state taxes, sixty one million in
26:38
Speaker 3: local It creates four hundred and thirty direct jobs as facility,
26:42
Speaker 3: plus many more indirect construction phase jobs. So clearly, you
26:46
Speaker 3: and your community, you're not buying that parse that argument. Oh,
26:51
Speaker 3: you could have built a bigger park, Charlie, if you
26:53
Speaker 3: would let it be there, and then the new park
26:56
Speaker 3: would eventually materialize, So you're not buying it?
26:58
Speaker 1: Tell us why?
27:01
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean those numbers are kind of made up, right,
27:04
Speaker 6: I don't The specifics on this project were few and
27:08
Speaker 6: far between. The developer never showed up in New Brunswick
27:11
Speaker 6: to explain what they wanted to do or why this
27:13
Speaker 6: was all just in the early phase of a redevelopment
27:16
Speaker 6: plan secondhand, and frankly.
27:19
Speaker 1: There were lies involved, right.
27:21
Speaker 6: We were misled at the initial city council meeting where
27:25
Speaker 6: they voted on this, and they were told this is
27:27
Speaker 6: just minor tweaks that they're making to the commercial component
27:30
Speaker 6: of the project, which was supposed to be offices in
27:32
Speaker 6: retail originally. So yeah, I have no faith or trust
27:38
Speaker 6: in you know, developers and officials who are going to
27:42
Speaker 6: mislead us, and you know, at the end of the day,
27:46
Speaker 6: you know they're not making the case.
27:48
Speaker 1: They're not making a good case for it.
27:50
Speaker 6: You know this This company basically came in and said, oh, yeah,
27:54
Speaker 6: that developer messed up, but we're going to take over
27:56
Speaker 6: their project where the financial backers, and don't worry, he's
27:59
Speaker 6: not involved anymore.
28:00
Speaker 1: So you could trust us. But then they're in Palm Beach.
28:03
Speaker 6: They never came to New Brunswick and explained what they
28:05
Speaker 6: wanted to do or why, and you know, ultimately this
28:08
Speaker 6: seemed like a half baked plan all along. But it
28:11
Speaker 6: was so important that we stopped the redevelopment plan because
28:13
Speaker 6: if it got through, it would have allowed them to
28:16
Speaker 6: have as many data centers as they wanted.
28:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to your point, you know, I was watching
28:21
Speaker 2: some of the town hall footage from Missouri community where
28:25
Speaker 2: they were pushing back on, you know, efforts to put
28:27
Speaker 2: a data center in their town, and the concerns really
28:31
Speaker 2: were everything from the you know, the I don't know
28:34
Speaker 2: what I want to call it, mundane, but you know,
28:35
Speaker 2: concerned about noise pollution, what's the traffic going to mean,
28:38
Speaker 2: what's it going to mean for the character of our town,
28:40
Speaker 2: to the more existential And to that point, I wanted
28:43
Speaker 2: to get your reaction to some recent comments from Sam Altman,
28:47
Speaker 2: because I think there's also something there's a deeply anti
28:50
Speaker 2: human ideology that is at the heart of this. So
28:54
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and take a listen to Sam Altman
28:56
Speaker 2: comparing the energy needs of AI to the energy needs
29:00
Speaker 2: of human beings.
29:01
Speaker 7: One of the things that is always unfair in this
29:04
Speaker 7: comparison is people talk about how much energy it takes
29:07
Speaker 7: to train an AI model relative to how much it
29:11
Speaker 7: costs a human to do one inference query, But it
29:13
Speaker 7: also takes a lot of energy to train a human.
29:15
Speaker 7: It takes like twenty years of life and all of
29:18
Speaker 7: the food you eat during that time before you get smart.
29:21
Speaker 7: And not only that, it took like the very widespread
29:23
Speaker 7: evolution of the one hundred billion people that have ever
29:25
Speaker 7: lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and
29:28
Speaker 7: learn how to figure out science and whatever to produce you.
29:31
Speaker 7: And then you took whatever you know you took. So
29:34
Speaker 7: the fair comparison is if you ask chatchpta question, how
29:38
Speaker 7: much energy does it take once its model is trained
29:40
Speaker 7: to answer that question versus a human? And probably AI
29:45
Speaker 7: has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis measured
29:47
Speaker 7: that way.
29:48
Speaker 2: So what do you make of those comments comparing the
29:51
Speaker 2: you know, the value and the energy needs of you know,
29:54
Speaker 2: babies up through adult humans versus robots.
29:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's certainly interesting.
30:00
Speaker 6: I think that you know, folks who think of it
30:02
Speaker 6: in those terms, are you know, demonstrating the coldness that they.
30:08
Speaker 1: Have towards society as we know it.
30:12
Speaker 6: And you know, innovation can and be ken. It is
30:17
Speaker 6: a great thing, you know, but we have to stay
30:20
Speaker 6: true to what we are, you know, as as human beings,
30:24
Speaker 6: as a society that you know loves and cares for
30:27
Speaker 6: one another. You know, we can't just throw it all
30:30
Speaker 6: away and change our physical environment to facilitate technology growth
30:37
Speaker 6: over our own sustainability as a species. And of course,
30:42
Speaker 6: you know, at the at the end of the day,
30:43
Speaker 6: it's it's it's about money, right. These folks are going
30:46
Speaker 6: to make a ton of money off this, and they
30:49
Speaker 6: don't want to share the wealth. They want to control everything,
30:54
Speaker 6: including information, including money, including water, including our you know, electricity,
31:01
Speaker 6: And you know we can't stand for that.
31:02
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a power brat. That's awesome.
31:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, all while promising to eliminate all or most white
31:09
Speaker 2: collar jobs. I mean, that's the thing that to me
31:11
Speaker 2: just continues to honestly astonish me, is they have the
31:16
Speaker 2: nerve to say, how dare you stand against a data
31:19
Speaker 2: center in your community when the quote unquote deal that
31:22
Speaker 2: they're threatening us with is we want to use up
31:25
Speaker 2: all the power if we find a robot to be
31:27
Speaker 2: more efficient than you than we feel perfectly entitled to
31:29
Speaker 2: privilege that robot right. We want to suck up we
31:33
Speaker 2: want to you know, make spike your electricity bills. We
31:36
Speaker 2: want to suck up the water, we want to suck
31:37
Speaker 2: up the resources, all in service of ultimately eliminating your job.
31:43
Speaker 2: And if you object to any of that, even from
31:45
Speaker 2: the hyper local perspective of I don't want to be
31:48
Speaker 2: part of this year in my community for a whole
31:49
Speaker 2: variety of reasons, then you are you know, anti technology,
31:53
Speaker 2: You're a degrowth, You're enemy number one, a sager put it.
31:58
Speaker 6: Yeah, a lot of interesting comments in response to that tweet. Yeah,
32:03
Speaker 6: all I can say is, you know, I support the
32:05
Speaker 6: humans over the machines, and I think that, you know,
32:08
Speaker 6: we should stick together, and no matter what the development
32:12
Speaker 6: is proposed, whether it's a pipeline or a power plant
32:15
Speaker 6: or a big AI data center, we should defend our communities.
32:19
Speaker 6: If we don't want those things in our communities, we
32:21
Speaker 6: have a right to stand up and say no. And
32:24
Speaker 6: it's on them to make the case for why that's
32:26
Speaker 6: going to be good in the long run, and they
32:28
Speaker 6: are not making that case.
32:29
Speaker 1: Totally agree, Charlie.
32:31
Speaker 3: They call you enemy, I call you hero number one.
32:34
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for joining us, Sir, genuinely inspired
32:38
Speaker 3: by what you guys were able to do. Thank you
32:41
Speaker 3: for joining our show. We appreciate it.
32:43
Speaker 1: Thank you my pleasure. Keep up the good work, all.
32:45
Speaker 3: Right, Thank you guys so much for watching.
32:46
Speaker 1: We appreciate it.
32:47
Speaker 3: We should be back in studio tomorrow as long as
32:50
Speaker 3: all the roads, electricity and all of that cooperates. And
32:52
Speaker 3: of course we're going to have our great State of
32:54
Speaker 3: the Union live stream, so we'll see you all
32:55
Speaker 7: Then, pot Boi