President Donald Trump’s longtime pollster Tony Fabrizio sent Republican candidates a memo Monday laying out how to counter Democrat attacks over artificial intelligence data centers.
Fabrizio warned that openly backing the construction of additional data centers without setting conditions could hurt Republican candidates.
“Unqualified support for building more AI data centers is a losing position,” Fabrizio wrote in the two-page memo obtained by Axios.
“That gives an opponent a factual foundation and the intensity to define the issue first. The dangerous attack is not about artificial intelligence but about household cost: enormous power consumption, higher rates for families and small businesses, a strained grid, scarce water, communities absorbing the costs—and large technology companies keeping the benefit.”
He advised candidates against saying, “I support building more data centers,” because the remark could be used against them in campaign ads.
Instead, Fabrizio said Republicans should acknowledge concerns about rising utility costs, pressure on the power grid, and the amount of water used by data centers. Candidates should then say they will only support projects if technology companies generate or pay for the power they need, shield customers from higher rates, and protect nearby communities and natural resources.
“This converts the candidate from a defender of technology companies into the person imposing rules on them,” he wrote.
Fabrizio also urged candidates to present those requirements as enforceable rules rather than promises voluntarily made by developers. He said Republicans should avoid dismissing residents’ concerns, defending specific projects before their costs are known, or relying mainly on arguments about jobs and competition with China.
“The order matters,” Fabrizio wrote. “It adopts voters’ concerns as the approval standard instead of asking them to set those concerns aside.”
Polling cited in the memo found that 61 percent of registered voters would allow data centers to be built if certain conditions were met, while 28 percent favored stopping their construction entirely. Voters opposed building more data centers without restrictions by a 65 percent to 24 percent margin.
Trump, however, continued to defend the industry Monday and dismissed concerns surrounding the projects. Trump wrote:
Concerning AI, when, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy? AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX, no different from RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA — UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE — IMPEACHMENT HOAX #1 — IMPEACHMENT HOAX #2 — and all of the other HOAXES and SCAMS that America was forced to endure through the Destructionists’ and Deviants’ foul play and illegal conduct. President Xi, of China, just announced that China will be doing absolutely nothing to stand in the way of AI, or its future. Google has recently stated that they want to build a massive Plant in Finland, all because they are finding permitting too difficult in the United States. I am not happy about this, and want them to change their thinking.
“AI, and Data Centers, will be the Greatest Economic Development Engine in History — Bigger than Oil, Gold, Diamonds, or even the Internet. It will not be stopped by brilliantly run Destructive Forces during the Term of President DONALD J. TRUMP!” he said.