Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Trump 'has utterly failed' to understand impact of A.I. and data centers on Americans Packer

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Trump 'has utterly failed' to understand impact of A.I. and data centers on Americans Packer · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I don't want your money.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: I don't need your money.
• 0:04
  Speaker 3: But I do feel sorry for everybody around us that
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: they're going to be affected by it.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: I'm staying put.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: That is Ida Huddleston. Last summer, she and her daughter
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: turned down more than $ 26 million for their land in
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Mason County, Kentucky. All they had to do was sign.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: The offer came from a company working to build one
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  Speaker 3: of the hundreds of data centers going up across this country,
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  Speaker 3: but she said no thank you. The Atlantic's George Packer
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  Speaker 3: traveled to Clinton, Iowa, where he met a lot of
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: that same sort of resistance. Neighbors, officials and companies spending
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: the last two years fighting over a proposed data center.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: According to one resident who does not like it at all,
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  Speaker 3: the issue has united both his town and the country.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: This is affecting all of us. Rich, middle class, poor.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: We're coming together because we're not happy, they said. George
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Packer joins me now. George, always good to have you.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us. This is an interesting issue. It's
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: like the one thing that's bringing Americans together. What's at
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: the heart of it?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Kevin Bradley, who I met in Clinton and who
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you quoted, said to me, I asked him, has anything
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: been agreed upon by so many Americans at the same time?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And he said, not since 9-11. That was probably right.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It's quite a while ago. What's going on? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it's caught politicians by surprise. It's caught journalists by surprise.
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  Speaker 1: This is truly coming up from the grassroots and almost
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: all over the country. So that is interesting to me.
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  Speaker 1: That told me I should go look at it. And
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: since it's happening in Clinton, Iowa, why not go there?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: You know, there's lots of specific concerns that local people have,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: whether it's water consumption or the heavy load on the
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  Speaker 1: electrical grid. Who's going to pay for the upgrades of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the grid? Will their rates go up? What about constant light, noise,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: just disruption of life and the sheer hideousness of these massive.
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  Speaker 2: Data centers in Clinton, which is a town of 24,000?
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  Speaker 2: The plan is for a.
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  Speaker 1: 5 million square foot data center across the equivalent of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: 832 football fields. So it's just immense, especially compared to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the scale of the town. But I think what struck
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  Speaker 1: me in talking to Clintonians against data centers was that
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the thing that really bothers them is that they were
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: not consulted. It was done behind their backs. There were
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: these code names for the projects. There were NDAs signed,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: including by a public official. There were secret meetings going
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: on for almost two years before this kind of leaked
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: out into the public. And the fact that it had
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: been kept secret was the great mistake of the proponents,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: because that, I think, is what gives people the feeling
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that they've sort of lost their dignity and they've lost
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  Speaker 1: their agency, their control over their lives. These giant entities
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: from far away, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, are coming in.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And without consulting them, without discussing it with them, are
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  Speaker 1: just claiming it as if they have a divine right
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to cornfields in order to produce AI, which, unlike a
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  Speaker 1: Walmart superstore, its benefit to people in Clinton is not obvious.
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  Speaker 1: There will certainly be benefits, but there could also be liabilities,
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  Speaker 1: including perhaps the extinction of humanity, as we're told by
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  Speaker 1: some insiders.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The secrecy, the lack of transparency, and the mystery of
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  Speaker 1: AI itself has combined to create a truly bipartisan grassroots opposition.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: It's interesting because we played that soundbite up top about
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: the woman and her daughter, Ida Hiddleston, who turned down
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: $ 26 million for their land in Kentucky. You talk here
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: about how this data center would bring in $ 20 million
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: in annual property taxes in a city that has a
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: $ 24 million budget. So it would be a lot of
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: money for that city to operate, a whole lot of money.
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  Speaker 3: And a lot of these companies promise that that money
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  Speaker 3: or the town councils promise the money will go to teachers,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: go to improvements, go to lowering power bills, et cetera,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: utility bills, things that would make people's lives better. But
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: you hit on something there. There's a lack of trust.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: There's a feeling of being disempowered. And I think it's
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: especially potent right now electorally. And I would love to
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: get your thoughts on this because Donald Trump, when he
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: came to office last, spoke to people in Iowa, Clinton, Iowa,
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  Speaker 3: and other places, and told them that they had lost
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: control of their lives because of the elite, the globalists,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: the insiders in Washington, the establishment, and that he was
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: going to restore it to them. He was going to
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: bring them their dignity back, take them back to an
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: era when Americans were in control of things again. That's
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: why he talks about manufacturing. It's kind of one of
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: those golden age halcyon ideas. Is this having, we've talked
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: a lot about Iowa being up for play, in play
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  Speaker 3: for Democrats. Is this having a political effect that you
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: could measure when you were there?
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  Speaker 2: No, I didn't talk to people about the election.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, I didn't want to talk to them about
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: partisan politics because there would have been something almost like
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a violation of their own code.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: They don't talk to each other about partisan politics.
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  Speaker 1: Their Facebook page, Clintonians Against Data Centers, bans any discussion
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  Speaker 1: of politics unless it has to do directly with data centers.
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  Speaker 2: So it's almost as if in order for this.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: To prevail, or at least to have some effect, because
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  Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to win in stopping the
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  Speaker 1: data centers, They have to maintain a very fragile alliance
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  Speaker 1: among people who, as the news, the head of the
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  Speaker 1: the editor of the the Clinton paper said to me,
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't even be talking to each other without this issue.
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  Speaker 1: So it's almost as if it has to exist apart
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  Speaker 1: from politics. Of course, it's having an effect on politics
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  Speaker 1: in Iowa, in Ohio, in Michigan and in Wisconsin and.
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  Speaker 1: These state candidates for Senate, for governor are all scrambling
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  Speaker 1: to catch up because they're behind the voters. And both
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans were sort of caught without a clear
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  Speaker 1: position and are now desperately trying to tell the people
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  Speaker 1: what they want to hear and to get on the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: right side of this issue. You're absolutely right about the money.
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  Speaker 1: I sympathize with the mayor of Clinton, who told me
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: that it could bring in 20 or more million dollars
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  Speaker 1: a year.
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  Speaker 2: And Clinton needs it.
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  Speaker 1: It is a downwardly headed, old agricultural industrial town that
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  Speaker 1: lost its sawmills and then saw a lot of decline,
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  Speaker 1: including in the population.
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  Speaker 2: It would be very helpful.
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  Speaker 1: And I understand why the mayor and the city council
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: have been sort of favorable to the data centers. But
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: they've done it in a way that has touched that
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  Speaker 1: nerve of distrust that you mentioned that is so live
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  Speaker 1: and that Trump has utterly failed to understand. You know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I wrote about David Sachs earlier this year. I think
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: you and I might have talked about my piece on Sachs,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the AI czar for Trump. And what occurred to me
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in that piece was they have lost their field. Sachs
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  Speaker 1: may never have had it. Trump has lost his feel
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  Speaker 1: for his mass base and is getting on the wrong
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: side of them and seems to be more interested in
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: hanging out with Jensen Wang and David Sachs and Mark
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and Elon Musk than understanding why people might be
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: upset about this issue.
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  Speaker 2: So that he said, oh, yeah, they just want to
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: stay backwards and poor.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Now, that phrase really ticked off a particular woman I
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: spoke to in Clinton who was a Trump voter. So
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I think there is political malpractice going on on the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: part of Trump and his his circle. because this issue
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  Speaker 1: could really come back to harm them.
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  Speaker 3: He doubled down on that, by the way. And I
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  Speaker 3: got to end it here, but I'm going to read this. Look,
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: the data centers make a lot of money. This is
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Trump talking to Time magazine. I said, you heard me.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: I said, if you want to be poor, you want
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: to have no money. If you don't want to have
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: a job, you want to live in a crime infested area, squalor,
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: all the things that go along with it. You should
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: have not, you should not have a data center. Look,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: what's happened to some of these communities. Now I do
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  Speaker 3: notice that so many politicians are against them, but I
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  Speaker 3: don't change. So doubling down on, backwards and pour there.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I've been to Clinton, Iowa. I had a lovely meal
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: at El Tapatio. I hope you got a good meal
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  Speaker 3: in there as well.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Denny Steiner was where I had mine.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: George, really good to have you. Thanks as always.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: See you, Katie.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Hey, it's Rachel.
• 9:14
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• 9:16
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• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks.