Vice President JD Vance reportedly spent part of his Monday doing damage control, working to clarify President Trump’s forceful defense of data centers after a reporter pressed him on the issue.
The vice president fielded questions from the press before boarding a flight to Michigan, a crucial swing state where data centers have become a hot-button issue.
A reporter asked Vance how the president’s message that Americans should embrace more data centers would play with voters ahead of the midterms, noting the topic has become a flashpoint in certain areas.
Vance responded by explaining that data centers are a vital piece of the AI economy, but stressed that companies building them also need to build the power plants to support them. He pointed out that the vast majority of public pushback against data centers has come from communities where construction led to higher utility and electricity bills for residents.
The vice president went on to say that companies should be taking advantage of the administration’s federal deregulatory efforts. He argued that data centers should be adding power back into the grid rather than draining it, and that if companies follow that approach, the facilities shouldn’t generate much controversy. According to Vance, the real problem arises when utility bills spike for everyday people. He then wrapped up the exchange and headed off to board his flight.
Vance’s measured response stood in contrast to the president’s own comments earlier that day. While the vice president acknowledged the frustration and energy concerns tied to the AI-powering facilities, Trump took a far more full-throated approach in a Truth Social post, defending data centers without reservation and going after their critics directly.
In his Monday morning post, Trump argued that communities across the country should welcome data centers, warning that rejecting them would only lead to being “backwards and poor,” while embracing them would bring lower taxes and widespread jobs. He claimed that plenty of other locations would gladly take the data centers if certain communities turned them away, and cautioned that killing off the opportunity would be a mistake with no one else to blame. Trump added that China was thrilled to see the anti-data center sentiment spreading in the U.S., claiming Beijing could hardly believe it was happening.
The controversy comes on the heels of a memo obtained by Axios in mid-August from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which warned that Democrats are turning data centers into a central campaign issue in their effort to defeat Senator Jon Husted of Ohio. The memo cautioned that if Husted loses and data centers are blamed, politicians nationwide will take note and steer clear of future projects, calling it a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle.
[READ MORE: Trump Defends Data Centers, Warns Opposing Communities Will Be “Backwards and Poor”]
