For months, President Trump has publicly celebrated data centers. “The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in August. “If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.”
Trump has called data centers “fabulous” and “absolutely beautiful.” Trump has also claimed that data centers make “a fortune” for the surrounding communities, calling them “tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them.” In August, Trump argued that “data centers could be bigger than oil.”
In September, Trump claimed that “communities that were dying” before having data centers are now “wealthy.” In a July post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, “One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers,” arguing that “[t]hey are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built.”
Trump has also claimed that data centers make communities safer. “Look, the data centers make a lot of money,” Trump said in a September interview with TIME. “If you want to be poor, you want to have no money, if you don’t want to have a job, and if you want to live in a crime-infested area, squalor, all the things that go along with it, you should not have a data center.” In the same interview, Trump said, “It doesn’t mean I want them right next to my house, but certainly I like them in my county.”
But while Trump is publicly championing data centers, his super PAC, which he has made clear that he controls, is paying for advertisements attacking Democratic candidates for allegedly supporting data centers.
Popular Information obtained a mailer from No Going Back PAC, an alter ego of Trump’s super PAC MAGA Inc., attacking Jamie Ager, the Democratic candidate for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District. The mailer attacks Ager for being “open to large AI data centers” and “putting… AI data centers ahead of North Carolinians.”
The mailer was submitted by a North Carolina resident through Popular Information’s new web app, Paid For By.
So, why is Trump’s super PAC attacking Democrats for something he has publicly supported?
The reality is, despite Trump’s support, data centers are deeply unpopular. A Gallup poll conducted in March found that over 70% of Americans “oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area.”
Trump’s contradictory attack mailer is also inaccurate
Aside from being hypocritical, the mailer’s claims about Ager are unsupported.
As evidence for the claim Ager “is open to large AI data centers,” the mailer cites an April article by a news outlet called Mountain Xpress. But that article, in which Ager was asked about his stances on various environmental issues, does not show that he is “open” to data centers.
In the article, Mountain Xpress asked Ager his stance on data center development in relation to a moratorium enacted by the town of Canton, which is in the district he is running to represent. “Data centers need to work for us, not the other way around. If we’re going to let a data center be built in Western North Carolina, it needs to bring good local jobs; it cannot poison our water or our air, and it cannot drive up electric bills for families and small businesses,” Ager responded. “Canton asked the right questions. Every community deserves that ability to set the terms if they want a data center at all.”
Elsewhere, Ager has supported a moratorium on new data centers. In August, Ager said, “I’m really skeptical that centers are a good fit for Western North Carolina… We need to be very careful, and I support a short term moratorium to make sure we study the issue before we make any long term commitments.”
Most recently, Ager wrote in an October 8 Facebook post, “Western North Carolina’s natural beauty is irreplaceable. Data centers strain water resources, raise utility bills, and cause noise pollution. I support a 1-year moratorium on new data centers because these facilities are not good neighbors.”
The mailer also makes unsupported claims about Ager’s healthcare stances, stating that he “would expand giant health insurer profits” and “opposed $50 billion for rural healthcare.” These claims take Ager’s statements out of context. In reality, he has said that Affordable Care Act subsidies should be extended as a stopgap, in order to lower costs for enrollees. He also expressed opposition to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which did include $50 billion for rural healthcare, but also cut Medicaid for rural communities by an estimated $137 billion over ten years.
Trump super PAC’s TV attack on data centers
The Ager mailer is not the only instance in which No Going Back has pushed misleading claims about a Democratic candidate’s stance on data centers.
In a TV ad, No Going Back accused Democrat Jessica Killin, who is running to represent Colorado’s 5th Congressional District, of “profiting off companies pushing for data centers.” The ad specifically claims that a lobbying firm co-founded by Killin’s husband has been paid “$580,000 by tech companies pushing for data centers.”
As evidence, No Going Back cites a New York Times article about data centers that does not mention Killin at all, but does mention Meta and Alphabet — two companies in which Killin’s husband owns stock. According to the Colorado Sun, the claim about Killin’s husband’s lobbying firm is also misleading. The firm FS Vector does lobby on behalf of technology companies that seem to use data centers, but the Colorado Sun could not identify any clients who directly own or operate data centers.
Killin’s campaign told the Colorado Sun that she supports a moratorium on a new data center in El Paso County, Colorado.
Great job covering Katie Zacharia's "qualifications." It's "head of lettuce" time...
If only the MSM paid that much attention to your other work...
As usual, so proud of the fine job the PI Team is doing on investigative reporting!